Days Without Rain
by sarsaparillia
Summary: Zuko, Katara, and life after the war. — Zuko/Katara, others.
1. worry the breakdown

**disclaimer**: disclaimed.  
**dedication**: B, S, L, C, A, N, & E. jesus christ you guys, why are there so many of you? (read: why do you even like me?)  
**notes**: Zutara is my OTP. nothing has ever topped it, nothing will ever top it, and I'm honestly surprised I haven't written them something long before this.  
**notes2**: this fic is shameless self-indulgent shipping, and nothing else. so there's that.

**chapter title**: worry the breakdown  
**summary**: Zuko, Katara, and life after the war. — Zuko/Katara, others.

—

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Katara was sixteen when Aang first asked her to marry him.

It was sunny. She remembered that. It was sunny, the sunlight refracting off the South Pole's ice and snow until everything was blinding white. It was the time of the midnight sun, when the light never went away, and no matter how long she stayed up, so did the golden glow of sunrise.

The South Pole was sunny, and Aang stood amongst the blowing snow and ice to stare at her with painful hope in his eyes.

And Katara didn't know what to say.

The words caught in her throat. She swallowed twice to force down her immediate reaction—_no no no no __**no**_—and smiled at him bravely. Silence suffused her, sympathetic but for the sorrow, and her voice was gentle over the wind when she spoke.

"We're still young, Aang. We don't need to get married right now," she said.

He looked so crestfallen. Katara watched as he crumbled into himself, and dug her nails into the palms of her hands. Her heart swelled and though she wanted to reach for him, she didn't.

She couldn't reach for him without giving him the wrong idea. Tui, but she wanted to—wanted to cradle him to her chest and whisper that she was sorry, that everything would work out, that the world would be alright.

Katara had mothered him for so long, she'd forgotten how to treat him like his own person. She'd forgotten how not to give him the wrong idea.

Not now, anyway.

And so she didn't say _but you're fourteen_ or _but I'm not who I was a year ago_ or _I don't love you anymore—maybe I didn't love you ever_.

She didn't really need to.

She didn't need to say anything at all.

Aang dropped his head down. Katara forced herself to swallow and not to cry, because crying would have only been a set-back at this point. She needed to make him understand, even if she didn't know how.

"Yeah," he said. "Yeah, you're right. We've got time. We've got all the time we need!"

Only they didn't, but Katara wasn't ready to tell him that.

She tucked long dark curls behind her ear, fingers clumsy and slow in her mittens. Nervous habits from a long time past, probably, from when she'd never worn her hair down because she couldn't stand to have it in her face.

(But her time in the Fire Nation had changed that.)

(Her time in the Fire Nation had changed a lot of things.)

She smiled again, tight around the mouth. It probably didn't reach her eyes, but Aang didn't seem to notice. He bounced back on the balls of his feet, already grinning like a child—just like always, just like forever, Aang was innocent and free-spirited as he'd been at twelve and just fallen out of an iceberg.

And Katara…

Well, Katara wasn't.

"—and then we can maybe stop in Ba Sing Se, Kuei needs support—"

She hadn't even realized he'd been talking.

Only one word registered.

"We?" Katara managed to stop herself from squeaking. "Aang, I can't leave yet!"

"But, Katara—" Aang started.

"No, Aang. The South isn't stable enough yet, things aren't back to normal—I can't just leave. I'm not ready to leave. I have responsibilities here."

And she wanted to scream and scream that she was never going to be ready, that she didn't want this anymore; that she hadn't ever wanted it, because she wanted to be something more than The Avatar's Girlfriend-Wife-Mother. She wanted to be Master Katara of the Southern Water Tribe, Bloodbender, killer, woman, sixteen-summer mess.

And for thirty seconds, she didn't want to have responsibilities.

But that was probably too much ask.

Aang was silent for what seemed to be a very long time. She had to remind herself that he was fourteen—saved the world, yes, but still fourteen and sulky, and that _he was not her son_.

"Fine. Whatever. If you'd rather stay here than come with me on an adventure—"

"Aang, it's not like that."

"Is too like that. Just—whatever."

"Aang—!" she started, but he had already whirled an air scooter and shot off towards the stables. It kicked up the snow, and the icy air clung to her skin from where it had slipped into her jacket. Katara shuddered at the impact, flinching away from it like a physical blow.

She bit her tongue so hard she bled.

Hands curled into fists, she stalked back to her home.

She slammed the door behind her.

Katara threw herself down on her bed, and screamed herself hoarse.

—

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_tbc_.

**notes3**: this is not what I'm supposed to be working on right now.  
**notes4**: please don't favourite/alert without leaving a review! :)


	2. something indestructible

**disclaimer**: disclaimed.  
**dedication**: to Bryke for sinking the best of all the ships and giving me the chance to write this (NO I AM NOT BITTER NOT. AT. ALL).  
**notes**: you know what I thought I had an idea for this fic but really I don't so basically I am bullshitting but since that's pretty much how I get through life I think it'll work out? right? right.

**chapter title**: something indestructible  
**summary**: Zuko, Katara, and life after the war. — Zuko/Katara, others.

—

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The next morning, Katara was up and about like nothing had happened.

The villagers only whispered a little bit. They'd seen the Avatar fly out that morning in a flurry of snow without her, bright in the morning light.

Katara's smile was hard as diamond, cold as ice.

No one would see a hair out of place if she could help it.

The brave face was easier when there was no one around to call her on it—Sokka would have, but he only looked at her for a minute and then exhaled, slow in the brilliance of the sun off the snow through the window.

Suki only smiled like she understood.

Katara was grateful that they didn't pry.

She wasn't ready to have a heart-to-heart about her (ex-)boyfriend with her brother and his fiancée. Not yet, anyway.

"Dad wants to see you," Sokka grinned at her over his shoulder. He nodded towards the center of the village—Katara would never understand how he could orient himself like that, like he always knew exactly where he was and exactly where he needed to go.

But then, Sokka was a moron, so maybe it wasn't really a surprise after all.

She swiped at his head and he didn't get out of the way in time to avoid the sting of a water whip at the back of his skull. Katara laughed and slipped outside before he could retaliate and she closed the door over the shout of blended rage and pain in her brother's voice.

It was summer, but the South Pole was still cool.

It never really got warm.

Katara walked to the crackling sound of slowly-melting ice and the distant cries of the saberhawks nesting at the cliffs near the shore. Her father needing her—well, that was nothing new, perhaps one of the men had dropped something on his head again.

The _crunch_ of snow under her boots was loud in her ears.

None of the villagers said a single word, and Katara pushed her way into the council room like she belonged there.

A year and a half ago, the council room would have gone deathly silent. A woman intruding on peace talks? A _woman?_! What was the world coming to—?

And that had lasted all of six days, until Katara had challenged every single man to solo combat and _won_; stood over them with ice daggers in her hands and a deadly chill in her eyes. There had been a viciousness in it, acrid-sweet against her tongue, and she'd wondered if maybe she hadn't been ready for the war to be over.

Aang had been so disappointed.

Katara couldn't have brought herself to care if someone paid her for it.

(Her time in the Fire Nation had changed so many things.)

"Dad? You wanted something?"

Hakoda turned towards her. Katara only managed a weak smile before her father swept her up into one of the polarbeardog hugs that had reassured her so when she'd been a child—

"_Go find your dad, honey. I'll be okay_."

—but she shook the memories off before they could engulf her. Her father smelled of wood smoke and the burn of Fire Nation tobacco (a strange habit he'd picked up from his imprisonment on the Boiling Rock), just as he always did.

Katara breathed in deep once, twice, then let go.

It had been a very long time since she'd clung to him for protection.

"Dad? What is it?"

Her father looked ancient. The lines beneath his eyes could have been the dark cracks in the ice that went down forever, but Katara had always known never to go near those. She might have fallen, and then the world might never have found their Avatar.

She shivered at the very thought.

"We have a visitor, Katara."

And her father stepped out of the way, and Katara lit up; sunshine, fire, _lightning_ (it's not her element, but it's blue and they call it the cold fire and that _counts_ for something because lightning is—that _moron_), she very nearly threw herself across the room.

"Iroh! _Iroh_!"

The old man chortled, the laughter coming from deep in his chest. Katara felt heat and the dry of dead leaves, the scratch of his beard against her cheek as her arms wrapped around the soft weight of his middle—and suddenly she was fourteen again, saying goodbye with her jaw taut and unable to speak because they were all probably going to die but she'd be _damned_ if she didn't even _try_—

Sometimes Katara wondered if she'd ever be able to leave the war behind.

(Probably not.)

"My, my, Lady Katara, how you've grown!" and he held her by the shoulders, held her back and looked her up and down, and yes, she'd grown up and changed and home—home hadn't.

And she knew he could see that.

"Iroh, what are you doing here?"

But it was her father who answered, his voice grave and low from behind her. "There was an attack."

Katara's blood turned to ice. "What?"

Iroh heaved a long sigh. "On my nephew's life."

"They wore Water Tribe colours," said Hakoda. The skin around his eyes was tight, furious, and Katara understood. That was tantamount to a declaration of war, and the world could not afford another war. The world was very tired of war.

"Is he alright?" Katara heard herself ask.

And thought—_I have no control, I'm not supposed to care anymore_.

But of course she did.

Iroh regarded her seriously for what seemed to be a very long time, fingertips folded together. But finally he nodded. "Yes, Lady Katara. The healers say he will recover most admirably. My nephew is tenacious."

Katara's fists had clenched on the word _healers_.

Neither Hakoda nor Iroh chose to comment.

There was silence in the councilroom. Katara tried to rearrange her life priorities—he was going to be _fine_, she couldn't just _leave_, that would be _bad_ and her father would never forgive her and—and _Aang_, Aang would never forgive her either and—

"Katara, I hate to ask this of you. I know you want to stay here," said Hakoda. His voice had gentled to the coaxing lull that she always used on Sokka when he was being annoying.

"What do you want me to do?" Katara asked, cutting him off before that eerie inflection could shake her any more.

"Act as liason," Iroh replied. "Ambassador to the Fire Nation. Disprove this attack, denounce the attackers. My nephew needs the support, Lady Katara."

"You want me to be a politician?" she was almost incredulous. "In the _Fire Nation?_!"

Her father winced. "Katara, you don't have to, but it would be—"

"No," she cut him off. "No, I'll go."

Katara looked down at her shoes, trying to quell the sudden rush of excitement. A pause, and then:

"I'll go."

—

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_tbc_.

**notes2**: I don't care how cliché it is, I just want to get them back in some semblance of together and then they can make out and I'll be happy.  
**notes3**: why don't you click that button and come say hi? that'd be cool.


	3. coming apart at the seams

**disclaimer**: disclaimed.  
**dedication**: to my bffs. thank you for working when the planet is melting. especially to B, because she convinced me to post this five days earlier than I should have.  
**notes**: so **throwapunch** asked me why I like Zutara. I vomited 1400 words in less than an hour in reply. welp.  
**notes2**: I'm an asshole. smart people usually are.

**chapter title**: coming apart at the seams  
**summary**: Zuko, Katara, and life after the war. — Zuko/Katara, others.

—

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Katara had no good memories of Fire Nation ships.

(Except one, but that one involved watching them burn.)

The air tasted of salt and rust and the snow crunched under her boots as Katara put one foot in front of the other, headed towards the harbour. New and improved and different, the harbour had been Sokka's baby project—meant to accept trade with all the nations, the docks were hardy wood and shiny new metal, and they were impossible to miss.

The huge Fire Nation barge docked there was even more impossible to miss.

It was strange to know they weren't here to destroy everything she loved.

It was strange to know that she would be willingly boarding.

It was strange, and Katara wasn't at all sure that she liked it.

She dragged the rust-air into her chest, savouring the bite at the back of her lungs. It tasted like stewed sea prunes, the drip of fat off meat into fire, the South Pole in all its dangers. It tasted like home.

And Katara didn't know how long it would be until she tasted that air again.

She pulled only one more breath in, and then she climbed the gangplank, and allowed the monstrous ship to eat her alive.

—

It was quiet inside.

Quiet, red and grey, dark. It was much as Katara remembered—but, she thought, lips curling up cruelly, they probably wouldn't try to lock her up this time. It wasn't nice to treat guests like ostrich horses, even if they _were_ Water Tribe _peasants_.

Besides.

She could feel the sea beneath her, deep breathing, the slow push and pull of the moon to create the tide. What had once been blocked by metal had been wiped away by time. There was water beneath her, even if she couldn't see it. There was water beneath her, and Katara was a waterbender.

If they so much as looked at her the wrong way, she'd drown them all.

They couldn't hold her if they tried.

Iroh's hand on her shoulder was comforting, though, and Katara thought that maybe she didn't have anything to worry about.

Not yet, anyway.

But they weren't on Fire Nation soil yet.

Katara had no illusions. The war might have been over, but the suffering wasn't. The people of the Fire Nation would appreciate what she was able to do about as much as they appreciated having to pay war reparations. And Zu—the Fire Lord's attackers had worn the garb of her tribe.

(She would have killed them for that alone. She would have killed them for sullying the calm blue fabric—for her family, for her honour, for that person that she'd once been a little bit in love with. She would have killed them for him.)

Not very much appreciation at all.

Katara smiled without humour. "I'm alright, Iroh."

"I know you are, child," he said and shook his head, slowly, back and forth. "But there are things that we must address."

She laced her fingers together, dusky knuckles bent into long ridges along the surface of her skin. She felt stretched, flesh too thin and crackling, flaking, bleeding with the mess that she was, guts out and red all over her hands.

"Like what?"

The old man raised an eyebrow, and Katara couldn't help but remember that this man had dealt with several angry children trying to save the world and never once complained. There was still fight in him.

They didn't call him the Dragon of the West for nothing.

"First, it is high time you called me _Uncle_, Lady Katara,. We have known each other far too long to deal in formality," he said, and paused as if he was truly thinking over their next matter of business. "And second, tea!"

Katara choked on her own spit trying not to laugh.

Iroh was never going to change.

"Tea would be nice," Katara managed. "I'm sure the Fire Lord appreciates it very much."

He nodded imperiously, a perfect imitation of the Lord in question when he'd been younger. Lips pulled down, he scowled fiercely at her.

She lost all control.

Katara laughed until she very nearly cried.

(It had been a long time since she'd done that.)

Iroh smiled at her, eyes crinkling up into long-laid laugh lines. "There now, my lady, you look a little more like yourself. Come, there is a particularly lovely chrysanthemum and ginseng blend I would like you to try."

He took off down the hallway.

Katara took a deep breath, and followed him.

—

In the days that followed, Katara learned many things.

She learned that to properly brew tea, one had to let it stew precisely a hundred and twelve seconds. She learned several bawdy jokes from the crew that she knew she would never repeat in her father's presence. She learned that the price of Earth Kingdom rice was crippling the Fire Nation's recovering economy.

She learned to play Pai Sho.

And underneath all the new knowledge, the long slow movement of the sea sent her to sleep at night without dreams.

On the sixth day, they spotted land.

Katara ducked her head guiltily when Iroh raised an eyebrow in her direction. The old man had an uncanny sense of when she'd been playing with the ocean beneath them late at night, when they covered more leagues than any ship had a right to.

"I might have helped. A little. Only a little!"

Iroh sighed. "And we traversed an ocean in less than half the time we ought. The crew will think you a witch, Lady Katara."

She squared her shoulders. "They know what I am. They know I could sink this ship to the bottom of the ocean and come away from it unharmed. They know I helped end a hundred-year-long war. I think they've thought I was a witch right from the start."

He nodded solemnly.

"LAND _HO_!"

Katara raced for the deck.

(She did not see the old man press the tips of his fingers together, a very strange look across his face. It was a cross between contemplative and scheming, and it probably meant nothing good for the nation at large.)

(As such, it was likely a good thing that she didn't notice.)

The Fire Nation was beautiful. Green, gold, bright red—the colours awed her as much as they frightened her. In her homesickness (self-imposed exile), she'd forgotten how beautiful it was—had forgotten how the moisture infused the air, had forgotten how the sky seemed closer to the ground, had forgotten how much more _alive_ it was.

The South Pole had its own stark beauty, but it did not teem with life with way the Fire Nation did.

And suddenly, Katara wondered if maybe she'd made the wrong decision, after all.

The docks were thronged with fish-mongers and sailors alike, but they sailed past every single one. They did not slow until they reached the end of the wharf, where the ship turned into a little alcove out of sight of the public eye.

_A port for royalty only, then,_ Katara thought, intrigued. She hadn't thought this visit had been that important—but then, she amended, it _was_ a political alliance, so she supposed it did make sense. No one wanted to get assassinated while they were trying to save the world. It made for bad press.

The cove was very quiet. From where she stood on the bow, Katara could see a small contingent of men. Eleven, she counted, no more, no less. They were all dressed in very much the same manner, all thick Fire Nation armour that had to be horrid in this heat. She wouldn't be surprised if they were sweating like pigdogs beneath that metal.

The crew docked the barge efficiently.

Katara set down on Fire Nation land for the first time in two years looking at a bunch of soldiers.

It was not a welcome she liked.

(She could crush every single one of their hearts in their chests, she knew she could, but she wouldn't, because if they tried anything she would make it slow and she would make it painful and she would make them regret ever looking at her the wrong way. Katara did not forgive. Not now. Not ever.)

"Stand _down_! Do you not remember who our young lady is?" Iroh called from outside her peripheral vision.

Katara clenched her jaw and struggled not to reach for the seawater.

One of the soldiers seemed to recognize the truth in Iroh's words, and raised his hand. The others shuffled backwards, nearly tripping over themselves in their haste. Katara wondered how in Tui's name they were even allowed out of the palace.

She kept her eyes on the lone soldier. He reached up and pulled his helmet off.

Katara's breath caught in her throat.

"Welcome," he said.

"Your Highness," she replied, head dipped down just enough for propriety's sake. Her voice dripped saccharine sweetness. "How good of you to come greet us."

She could tell by the intake of breath that that had not been what he'd been expecting.

Katara raised her head, looked Fire Lord Zuko in the face, and smiled.

—

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_tbc_.

**notes3**: …this is getting longer than I thought it would be. shit.  
**notes4**: why not come say hi? I always say hi back. :)


	4. not half as strange as it's been

**disclaimer**: disclaimed.  
**dedication**: oh, Jimmy, I've missed you. also the usual bitches.  
**notes**: gobbledygook is all well and good, but WHEN DID YOU EAT RUST? /flips table  
**notes2**: I am so useless when I'm sick.

**chapter title**: not half as strange as it's been  
**summary**: Zuko, Katara, and life after the war. — Zuko/Katara, others.

—

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"It hasn't rained in weeks."

Katara could see how that mattered. The capital stank of sweat and garbage, cooking in its own humidity just outside the thin film of silk that separated the Fire Lord and company from the market fairway. Her hair stuck to the back of her neck, and what she wouldn't have given to pull the thick dark curls away from her skin.

They had an armed guard. It was silly, as far as Katara was concerned; given that two of the world's most powerful benders were ensconced in this cramped little palanquin, they needn't any protection at all.

Fire Nation propriety was going to be the death of her.

(Or maybe an assassin and a poison dart, but Katara wasn't going to die that easily. Not yet, anyway.)

"That's unfortunate," she murmured, and bent liquid from the air like it was nothing. She held it between her hands, turned it to a globe of clear blue. "There's so much water in the air."

She didn't say that it should have been pouring. She was sure they both knew that—Iroh nodded sagely, and Zuko watched her sharply like he couldn't quite believe she was even sitting in front of him.

Katara might have smiled a little. She couldn't quite believe she was sitting in from of him.

Maybe he couldn't, either.

"Frankly, I'm amazed you haven't all drowned," she continued. The water in her hands flattered into a shining ribbon morphed into a girl dancing split into two fish circling and circling and circling only to merge to a perfect sphere that might have been the moon. It hung untouched and suspended in the air, and then she sent it vaulting out the palanquin window to splash loudly in the street.

And she couldn't help but giggle when someone unwary shrieked, probably soaked to the bone.

Zuko ground his teeth together. "Are you _trying_ to blow our cover?"

Something reared back in her, an acrid bite at the back of her throat.

She'd been waiting for this.

"What cover? Like it wasn't blown the second we docked_?_!" Katara shot back. "Like the crew aren't going to talk_?_! We made it here in _six days_, Zuko, from the South Pole. That's not _normal_."

"And whose fault was that?"

"Keep your voice down, you're going to blow our cover," and the sarcasm was layered on her voice so thick, it was almost a palpable thing.

They'd both forgotten how easy it was to get underneath the other's skin. Katara grinned with her teeth, eye-cut and _mean_ because, _Spirits_, it felt good to be mean again. Everything before—home, and Dad, and _Aang_—she'd had to be so _good_. She'd had to be so _nice_.

Katara was very tired of being _nice_.

Zuko understood that she needed to be angry, at the very least.

She would have hated him for that alone.

(Not to mention all the other things—she still hadn't forgiven him for nearly making her watch him die. There were a lot of things she still hadn't forgiven him for.)

The retort was white-hot on her tongue, scathing acid and she would crush his soul if she could, but—

"A-_hem_."

Iroh interrupted them.

Like always.

By unspoken agreement, Katara and Zuko turned to look at the old man at the exact same second. They weren't even close to the end of this fight, and neither was willing to cede the upper hand. Not yet.

Iroh chuckled. There was something tired in the gesture, like maybe he'd playing court games too long. Katara didn't blame him. Court games took too much energy, and the rules were always changing.

(That was a lie. The rules didn't change; it was just that there were no rules in the first place. The only rules that mattered were the ones you made yourself.)

"When a tree falls, the monkeys scatter," he said.

The pair of teenagers stared, bewildered.

Iroh just smiled innocuously, benign, glib, all the things that made him look as if he hadn't said anything utterly confusing at all.

Katara narrowed her eyes. "Uncle, what do you _mean_ by—?"

"Ah-ah, not now, Lady Katara, we're almost at the palace! There will be time for talk and tea, later, after you've met with the council."

Out of the corner of her eye, Katara watched Zuko pinch the bridge of his nose. He'd gone stiff, jaw clenched as he drew one deep slow breath and held it for a good half-minute.

"Zuko?" she asked. Her voice was very quiet.

He exhaled ash. "Nothing. Just the usual."

"And that is?"

"You don't want to know."

"No," she smiled. It wasn't a happy thing. "I think I do want to know."

"Katara—"

The palanquin shuddered to a halt. Knocked off-balance, Katara caught herself against the edge of the window, fingers crunching the silk away, and got her first look at the Fire Nation palace for the first time in two years.

She clenched her fists, grit her teeth; she needed something to keep her from summoning all the water in the air and washing this place away. She would crack open the sky if she could—she would crack open the sky if she thought it would make any difference.

Rainbending took too much energy, though, and Zuko's fingers bit into her wrist brought her back.

"They need to think we're on the same side, Katara."

"We _are_ on the same side."

"Are you kidding_?_!"

She glanced up once, a quick little flick of her eyes. Gold, furious gold. But helpless, too, and he—he needed her. Someone always needed her, but this was different.

It only because this was Zuko, and Zuko never, never needed anyone.

Katara breathed out, calm again.

"Okay. No fighting," she murmured. "Let's go talk to your council."

Zuko nodded jerkily. The line of his jaw was sharp, and Katara swallowed convulsively. She maybe should have expected that this wasn't going to be as easy as she wanted it to be. She maybe should have expected that being around him again wasn't going to be as easy as she wanted it to be.

Aang was still a child.

Zuko? Not so much.

But she could do this.

She had to.

She only realized that Zuko's hand was still wrapped around her wrist as an afterthought. His fingers were uncomfortably warm, but she hadn't really noticed it until she wanted to get away. She tugged a little.

"Um. Zuko? My hand?"

"Uh, right."

He let her go faster than a burn.

(Iroh look inordinately pleased. Katara determinedly ignored him.)

They slipped from the palanquin into the cover of a little courtyard. Zuko nodded at the guards who had brought them all this way—he didn't smile, for which Katara was grateful. Zuko should not ever smile—and struck out towards the palace doors. Katara watched him go without a word.

"Thank you, Lady Katara," Iroh said gently.

"Don't worry about it, uncle," she replied. "It's something I have to do."

And then she followed the Fire Lord into the palace, emotions under control, forcing herself to breathe.

—

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_tbc_.

**notes3**: so yeah. hi. I'm sick. does anyone want to come talk? that'd be cool. :)


	5. put this armour on

**disclaimer**: disclaimed.  
**dedication**: to Emily, for always talking this shit out with me.  
**notes**: I don't like this chapter. it was a poopy-head.

**chapter title**: put this armour on  
**summary**: Zuko, Katara, and life after the war. — Zuko/Katara, others.

—

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They didn't meet the council right away.

Zuko led her through the winding palace halls. They walked silent in tandem, one step, two step, three step, four. Katara thought it odd that even after all this time, they still managed to fall in sync without a word.

They were not children. They had never been children.

She forgot that, sometimes.

The walls glittered mutely—gold on obsidian wood, glinting red gems embedded into the polish like cat's eyes. The opulence of it made her lips pull back.

"I would get rid of it if I could," Zuko grimaced.

"No, you wouldn't," she replied.

The funny thing (or maybe the sad thing) was that it was true. Opulence was power, in the Fire Nation, and Zuko _needed_ power. The world was still healing. The world would be healing for a very long time, and to knuckle under and give up would be akin to political suicide.

Katara could understand that.

He seemed to think about it for a long, long time. They'd snuck through three doors—because that was what they were doing, they were _sneaking_—before he finally looked at her out of the corner of his eye and sighed.

There was smoke on his lips as he nodded and said "Yeah, maybe you're right."

She tried not to feel _too_ vindicated.

"Maybe I am," she said.

She thought she saw his lips twitch, and she wondered who he was, now; she wondered who this man who wore her ex-friend's skin was. She wondered if it even mattered at all.

They rounded the corner—

And jumped back at the clatter of something—footsteps, maybe, but something loud and heavy—from somewhere down the hall. Katara and Zuko collided only for a minute. It was just long enough for the Fire Lord's fists to burst to brilliant white flame and for his guest to whip a dagger bent of ice up and out, glittering sharp ice needles hanging suspended in the air.

Silence.

Silence.

Perfect silence.

Neither Katara nor Zuko moved for a very long time.

When they finally did, it was with the tense, jerky movements that characterized the people who had been soldiers for the defining portion of their childhoods. They didn't look at each other.

"You, too?" Zuko asked.

"Yeah. Me, too." Katara replied.

With a flick of her wrist, the ice that hung around them liquefied and slid back into her water-skin. They slumped back against the wall, slid down 'til they were crumpled on the floor, nothing but a pile of limbs and fabric and exhaustion.

"Do you ever have nightmares?" it was Katara's turn to ask.

Zuko snorted. "When do I _not_ have nightmares?"

"I didn't mean it like that," she said.

"Then how did you mean it, Katara?"

"You _know_ how I meant it," she told him.

"I guess so," Zuko said.

It would have been funny if it hadn't been quite so sad. They rested against the wall, against each other; this was a truce, somehow. They were on the same side, again.

The anger, though, that made sense.

Putting aside anger and pride had always taken them a while. The last time, it had nearly taken a murder to get them on the same page—this was nearly the same thing, anyway.

"Uncle told me you got hurt," Katara said softly.

Zuko's jaw clenched, and he looked away. Through his teeth, he said "I wasn't paying attention."

"Who was it?"

"I don't know."

"I'm sorry," she said.

"Why?"

"I don't know."

Zuko said nothing in reply.

They sat together, shoulder-to-shoulder.

The only thing she could think about was how much older he looked. The lines sat oddly on his face. He didn't look nineteen. He looked tired. Was tired even an age?

She didn't know what to think.

"We should probably go," Katara said. "I bet they're making ugly faces waiting for us, and—"

"Wringing their hands because I'll probably hurt you or something. Good for me, bad for diplomacy," Zuko finished for her.

They pushed up the wall to stand, and they did not lean against one another.

"Pfft," she scoffed. "Please! If anyone would be getting hurt, it'd be _you_. You're the only person I know stupid enough to basically swallow lightning for some girl you barely know. And _what_ diplomacy?"

"I knew you! I don't know, diplomacy!"

Katara laughed. "Yeah, for what, eight months? You spent half of it chasing us around the world! And what diplomacy? That doesn't even make _sense_!"

Something in her heart _clenched_. Had Katara been anyone else, the sudden anxiety that gripped her throat would have frozen her in place. As it was, she gulped and looked away.

It had been a long time since she'd laughed.

Zuko either didn't notice her abrupt quiet or chose not to comment on it.

"Come on," he said instead, and led her to the end of the hall. The council was just beyond the door, and she eyed it with distaste.

"Do we _have_ to?" Katara whined. "They're probably all old and mean."

"You wanted to come here, _Ambassador_," Zuko said, infuriatingly smug. He tucked his hands

Katara tried very hard to let her natural aversion to arrogance colour her vision at his smirk. It didn't work, and she could only roll her eyes towards the ceiling in reply. Just to be annoying, she looped her arm through his and smiled, sugar-sweet.

(_Sugar Queen_ echoed between them from some long-forgotten time. Well, Toph _had_ always ended up being right—this was no different, only more pathetic.)

"If I go down, so do you," Katara said.

"That's not fair," Zuko said.

"You're the Fire Lord! Man up!" Katara flapped her hands at him in a near-perfect imitation of her Gran Gran.

Zuko made an ugly face in reply.

And suddenly they were two years younger, shoving at each other in their last days of peace in the Western Air Temple, flinging bouts of water and fire that hissed and turned to steam when they met across the campfire. And Toph rolled her eyes and ordered Aang to do something to distract him, and Sokka and Suki sucked face in the background, and it—it had been so easy.

They'd been a strange sort of family, but a family all the same.

Katara blinked away the memory.

"Do you miss it?" she asked.

"What?"

"The war."

Zuko stopped and looked at her for a long, long time.

"Yeah," he said at last. "I do."

—

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_tbc_.


	6. the girl who destroys entire worlds

**disclaimer**: disclaimed.  
**dedication**: to five-day weekends without internet. and also Chlo-ho, because I miss her like burning.  
**notes**: bloop.  
**notes2**: changed the title to _Days Without Rain (The Kill Your Heroes Remix)_, because that's what it was supposed to be in the first place.

**chapter title**: the girl who destroys entire worlds  
**summary**: Zuko, Katara, and life after the war. — Zuko/Katara, others.

—

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"Come now, gentlemen, I'm sure we can come to an agreement," Katara said.

Katara and Zuko had gone into this meeting without a game plan; neither his pride nor hers would allow them to have discussed anything beforehand, even if it would have been perhaps the smarter thing to do.

The council was not impressed by this Water Tribe woman.

Katara wasn't at all surprised by their reticence. They were a bunch of old Fire Nation men—men who would happily have gone back to the old ways, war profiteers, racist pigs who thought that she wasn't fit to breathe the same air that they did.

She thought about bloodbending. She thought about the full moon, about Yue, about being helpless. She thought about how easy it would be to snap all their necks.

Katara smiled beatifically at them.

They rustled underneath their ridiculous robes. They didn't trust her, and that was good—maybe they'd heard, then. Toph may have been the world's greatest earthbender, but Katara bent blood, and there was no one in the world who could take that away from her. She was coming off a war, too angry, and still dangerous. Wars were never kind to their veterans.

She set her hands down in front of her, cocoa-coloured skin a dusky kiss against the mahogany. She watched them inch away, like she was diseased.

Like thought was a disease.

Katara mentally snorted.

With this crowd, it might as well have been.

"Fire Lord," she said. "My people want to avoid another war at all costs—we cannot afford it, and neither can you. The Earth Kingdom will not stand for it."

She let the statement hang—hearing those men shift nervously was the best thing Katara had heard all day. She had them, she knew. She'd had them from the minute she'd stepped into the room, but watching the knowledge of it cross their faces was the best present she'd given herself in a long, long time.

"Then what do you propose, Master Katara?"

Katara grinned at the speaker with her teeth—Iroh chuckled as the man shrank away from her, and a sound that might have been laughter escaped the Fire Lord, as well. She had no doubt that one of the men around this table would send an assassin after her that very night.

Frankly, she'd be a little bit insulted if they didn't.

(She knew how these things worked.)

She tipped her head to the side. The pearls and shells braided into her hair clicked like bones, mouth tugged down into a thoughtful pout.

"Isn't that your job?" she sniped. "To do the Fire Lord's thinking for him?"

This time, there was no mistaking the snort that escaped the Fire Lord.

Katara wondered if he laughed much, anymore.

(Something told her that he didn't.)

"Now," she said. "Do you agree to my terms?"

—

"They want you dead," Zuko said, conversationally. It was later in the day, long after Katara had talked the council into giving her the peace treaty that she'd so wanted. It was a good thing—the Earth King would be pleased, and so would her father, and so would Uncle. Katara was rather pleased with herself.

The world was a little safer, for now.

(At least until someone tried to kill Zuko again.)

They stood on a little balcony together, away from the after-dinner dancing—it was Katara's introduction party. She'd been eyed all night, from all sorts of people; after all, how often did one see the Avatar's girlfriend without the Avatar? The Fire Lord had stayed close, but that had made sense.

It wouldn't do for someone else to touch the Lady Katara.

But neither of them had been much in the mood for dancing, and they'd slipped outside when no one was looking.

"Maybe more than they want me dead," he continued.

Katara shrugged, strangely indifferent. There was adrenaline rushing beneath her skin; the fourteen-year-old warrior that still lived in the back of her head was practically singing in joy. She'd fought, that day, she'd fought and she'd _won_—she still had it, she was still good enough, she could still cause _damage_.

(Even if it was only with words. Words could be as dangerous as bloodbending, or so Katara had found.)

"What can they do?" Katara asked rhetorically.

She had a point. As Ambassador, if she died it was on the Fire Nation's head. The Earth Kingdom was still pulling together, but they'd had two years to build a dangerous effective armada.

(It was said that Toph spent her days frolicking about Ba Sing Se destroying walls and beating the Dai Li into shape. Katara didn't doubt it at all.)

"Have you assassinated?" Zuko asked, just as rhetoric.

"You say that like they'd have a chance," she giggled. "Come on, Fire Lord, you know me. I don't die very easily, do I?"

"They're still going to try."

Katara looked at him out of the corner of her eye. "Personal experience?"

"Three times," Zuko said, grim.

Katara tapped her nose with a finger. "Four, maybe—who else would have sent someone in Water Tribe colours? They'd have to know that that would start a war."

She didn't need to say that the only people that wanted another war were the people who would _profit_ from another war.

"Fair point," Zuko replied. He rubbed his temples. "Just be careful."

"Why?" Katara teased. "Do you care?"

Zuko coloured high in his cheeks and scoffed. "No, I just don't want an angry Avatar on my hands."

Katara's face went still as stone. "You might have that anyway."

"Why?"

"Aang doesn't know I'm here."

Zuko stared at her. "_What?_!"

"He doesn't know I'm here," Katara repeated. She very determinedly did not look at him. "He—we had a fight. He left before I could tell him that—he left before they even asked me to come. So Aang—Aang doesn't know."

"You… fought," Zuko said slowly.

"Yes," Katara said. Her voice was very soft. "It was… bad."

Zuko regarded her in silence for what seemed to be a very long time. Finally, he slipped an arm around her waist. "I get it."

"I figured you would," Katara's smile was a little bitter. "I hadn't heard Mai left."

Zuko's jaw tightened. "I thought she was happy."

Katara leaned her head against his shoulder, and sighed deeply.

"I thought I was happy, too," she said. "I guess I thought wrong."

—

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_tbc_.

**notes3**: JESUS CHRIST MY GRANDMOTHER'S ROOMBA KEEPS SCARING THE SHIT OUT OF ME LIKE WHAT THE FUCK I SHOULD NOT BE THIS SCARED OF A TINY ROBOT BUT HOLY MOTHER OF GOD IT IS TERRIFYING.


	7. the boy who never held still

**disclaimer**: disclaimed.  
**dedication**: LESS without the second S, because that's me, and dedicating something to yourself is so passé.  
**notes**: plot? what's that?

**chapter title**: the boy who never held still  
**summary**: Zuko, Katara, and life after the war. — Zuko/Katara, others.

—

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The next day was not much better than the previous.

"Three," Katara said, tired. "Three people tried to kill me, last night."

Zuko winced. They were in the gardens after breakfast, and Katara stood with her arms crossed in the morning sunshine while he fed the turtleducks wheat bread. This was the Fire Lord's quiet time, before his advisors and his council got to him—this was his time to be Zuko, and Katara had somehow managed to infringe upon that.

He didn't mind as much as he thought he would have.

"Three!" she said again. She shook her head, face dark. "They're frozen in my bedroom."

"You're taking this very lightly," Zuko said, mildly interested.

"If I don't take it lightly, I'm going to start crying," she said, voice flat. Her eyes were perfectly blank. "I almost burst their hearts inside their chests."

"They did try to kill you," Zuko reasoned.

"I hate killing."

"So do I."

"Aang would be so disappointed," she said again. A funny little smile cracked across her face. "I almost killed three men, and all I could think about was how badly Aang would feel if I had."

He blinked at her, both eyes narrowing. "You still treat him like a child."

"I don't think I'm ever going to stop," Katara sighed softly.

"What do you want to do with them?" Zuko asked after a moment.

Katara shrugged. "The—? Oh. Couldn't we just let them think about their life choices for another little while? They tried to kill a master waterbender two days before the full moon. What did they _expect_ to happen?"

Zuko snorted. "You sound like Toph."

Katara's face scrunched up. "Please don't say that, it means I have to start being responsible again."

He had to bite his tongue to keep from snickering at her. She'd probably not like that, because this was Katara, and the Katara that he'd known had not appreciated being laughed at.

But then maybe she wasn't herself, anymore.

He certainly wasn't.

Two years, and they were different people entirely. They were still in the process of growing up—just accelerated and maybe a little twisted. Zuko was playing ruler and Katara was playing ambassador, but they were only actors on stage.

Somewhere beneath the roles, they were still themselves.

They hoped.

Sometimes Katara thought she'd pressed the act on so cleanly for Aang's sake the thing had become her face, and she was scared that no matter how much she scrubbed she wouldn't be able to get it off. Sometimes Zuko missed the Blue Spirit's laughing imp grin so much he thought about scaling the palace walls and running until he couldn't run anymore, and he was scared that one day he would.

Everyone was scared, these days.

(They didn't say that to each other, though.)

Zuko ripped the bread, and offered her half.

"You're always responsible," he said.

She took it from him, careful not to touch his fingers. "Thanks."

He didn't let it get to him.

They fed the turtleducks in silence. Katara's hair had gone even curlier than usual in the Fire Nation's near-dripping humidity and she kept pushing it out of the way—she'd pulled out the pearls and the shells that she'd worn in coming, and she looked almost exactly as he remembered only older.

Frankly, she looked decently insane—she was all crazy dark hair and crazy blue eyes, and Zuko thought that out of everyone, Katara was the one he'd want on his side in a firefight.

(That she was a waterbender and would therefore be the most useful in a firefight did not really register. The fact that she was Katara registered, though, and that was what counted. Zuko quietly quashed the voice that laughed like Azula in the back of his head.)

"Don't you have to go back?" Katara asked. She ripped off tiny pieces of bread one by one and tossed them into the water, and then sent them eddying towards the younger turtleducks—all the ducklings had grown up, but they still stayed close to their mothers.

Zuko could only wish.

"Soon," he said.

They were quiet again.

Katara drew a long breath, like she was about to ask something that neither of them really wanted to address. Zuko glanced at her—if this was about Mai or Aang, he really didn't want to—

"How long has it been since it's rained?" she asked.

That stopped Zuko short.

"I don't know," he said, frowning.

"Try to remember," Katara replied.

Zuko inched the bridge of his nose. "The sky is blue, right?"

The sky was very blue, that day, blue as her eyes. Yes, she could see the sky. Yes, she could see that it was blue. "What does that have to do with _anything_, Zuko?"

"You shouldn't be able to," he said, voice low. "This time of year, the sky should not be blue."

"How _long_, Zuko?" Katara asked again. She dropped the last of her bread into the pond, dusted her palms off, and set her hands on her hips. She glared up at him—he'd forgotten how potent that glare could be.

"A month," he said. "Maybe two."

"That long?"

"Yeah."

She drew another long breath, and began to tick things off on her fingers. "So we have a drought on our hands. And your council wants me dead enough to send three separate assassins in one night—your council wants _you_ dead, why in La's name do you keep them around?—and we have someone trying to start another war and blame the Water Tribes. We're on our own this time, Zuko."

Zuko paled with every word. "When you say it like that… Why are we even trying?"

She shrugged. "What else have we ever done?"

"Fair point."

And Katara sighed with her whole body. "Well, it could be worse."

"How?"

"You could be dead," she said. "I could be dead. We have Uncle. But we keep biting off more than we can chew, huh? Gran Gran would hit me with her walking stick."

"Very reassuring," Zuko muttered.

"Shut up," Katara said cheerfully. "It really could be worse."

Zuko grumbled a little more underneath his breath. It didn't _seem_ like it could be much worse. In fact, it seemed like they were about to hit rock bottom.

"If we were dead, we wouldn't have to deal with it."

"That's true," Katara said. "But I like being alive."

Zuko squared his shoulders. "Everyone likes being alive."

Katara poked him in the side and snickered into her fist when he jumped away, looking scandalized. Like this, the anger receded far away beneath her skin, and she could think clearly about life again—in that moment, she was just Katara, and it was nice.

"Everyone does like being alive," she said. She didn't quite meet his eye. "So let's enjoy it, okay?"

"Okay," Zuko said, and he looked away.

—

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_tbc_.


	8. the trees keep our secrets

**disclaimer**: disclaimed.  
**dedication**: to my lovies.  
**notes**: this chapter presented a real problem, and _I don't know why?_!_?_!

**chapter title**: the trees keep our secrets  
**summary**: Zuko, Katara, and life after the war. — Zuko/Katara, others.

—

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"Sokka's getting married?"

Katara blinked. She sat on the edge of his desk, swinging her legs back and forth like a child. Sunshine filtered through the window—the room dripped with out-of-season heat. They'd moved inside, because she'd rescued him from his council in the middle of a meeting about something that was probably not very important; like maybe the economy or the noble factions or maybe even the subject of marriage. And she was sure that they really, _really_ didn't like her, but it didn't bother her too much.

"Didn't I tell you?" she asked.

"No."

"He asked Suki to marry him at midwinter. I didn't think my brother knew what the word _romantic_ meant, but he proved us all wrong. It was nice. I've never seen Suki that happy," she said.

The scene replayed itself in front of her eyes: Sokka shifting nervously from foot to foot with his hand glued into his pocket, Suki's confusion and the sudden scent of fear, and then—

"They're coming to visit," Zuko said quietly. He flipped the letter over, but there was nothing there.

"When?" Katara asked.

"Three moon's time," he said. He set his hand down on his desk, the scroll curling up as he let it go, and Katara focused on the stark contrast of his skin against the wood—he was so pale, it couldn't be healthy. The Fire Nation's burn of soot and the smell of sunlight against wood were thick in her nose. It was foreign and too close and suddenly she missed the ice of home like something dark and vapid in her stomach, something jagged enough to cut through skin.

She shook it away.

"Come on," she said. She pushed off the edge of his desk and spun around to look at him, graceful as her element in motion. "Get up, we're going outside."

"But I—"

"Zuko, you look like you haven't seen sunlight in a week," Katara said with her hands on her hips. She glared down at him, eyebrows drawn down and gaze disappointed. "You can't do this to yourself, you know—you'll work yourself to death, and then you'll be no use to _anyone_!"

"But the economy—"

"The economy can wait an afternoon, you idiot! La, you're exactly like Sokka, it's any wonder either of you have a life—thank goodness for Suki."

"I do no not have a Suki."

"You have me," Katara said, with a roll of her eyes, "and that'll have to do for now. Come on. I'm going outside and you're coming, and you better not complain."

Zuko made a discontented noise in the back of his throat, but by then, Katara had seized him around the wrist and bodily dragged him from the room. The Fire Lord had little choice but to let her drag him, because he had a fair idea that she would pull the water from the air if she thought he was going to protest.

And maybe getting some sunshine was actually a good idea.

"It's no wonder my council hates you," Zuko told her, shaking his head.

Katara shrugged as they made their way through the halls. "What are they going to do, honestly? They've tried to kill me. It didn't work. For now, they'll just have to deal. Plus, I mean, if they really did kill me, there'd be a huge uproar, and then the war would—"

Katara and Zuko stopped at the same time and looked at each other with wide eyes.

"Oh, Gods," she whispered.

"You don't think—?" Zuko said lowly.

"I do think," she said tightly. "Is there somewhere we can…?"

"My mother's garden," he replied, and then he was the one dragging her forwards, trudging forwards with a grim line for a mouth. Katara nearly had to run to keep up, but she wasn't laughing. They flashed down hallways and dodged away from the eyes of guards and servants alike; they could have been a pair of teenagers in love for all anyone knew.

And so it wasn't until they broke out into the sunlight and foliage of Ursa's garden that Zuko and Katara let go of each other as fast as a burn, awkward alone together as they had ever been at almost-fifteen and seventeen.

"Are you sure no one can get in here?" Katara asked.

Zuko shook his head. "Just me," he said. "And Azula, I guess, but—yeah. Just me."

Katara nodded, and flopped to the ground. "Oh, Gods, Zuko. What if we're right? What if that's what they want? What if that's what this whole thing is about?"

He dropped down next to her. Katara's lips quirked up to see the great Fire Lord in his expensive Fire Lord clothes sitting in the dirt with her, and then they were sitting around the campfire with their knees drawn up to their chests while Aang and the others slept and they looked at each other across the fire, scared and so, so young.

"We deal with it, I guess. It would make sense," Zuko muttered.

"With the _Water Tribe_—" Katara said _water tribe_ through her teeth "—attacks, yeah, it kind of does. The Fire Lord dead, the Water Ambassador dead… They'd make it look like we fought and god, Zuko, we've done so much fighting. Why can't we just…?"

He shrugged. His shoulders looked very large, and Katara thought of an ice berg, and how on the lee, the wind was never quite was bad. And that was Zuko, then—as she sat there, he kept her sheltered from the real world for a little while.

"I dunno."

Then the colour drained out of his face. "Sokka and Suki are coming."

Katara blinked. "Yeah, you told me this morn—oh Gods, Zuko, Zuko, what are we even going to _do_? We can't tell them not to come, they're probably already on their way—we're going to need to find protected rooms, maybe, I, oh Spirits, we're done. We are so done—"

She was babbling.

Zuko sat and listened to her wail until she ran out of words, and then he carefully—_careful, careful_—slung an arm around her shoulders. They sat together, and Katara dropped her head to his shoulder.

"It's going to be alright, Katara," he said, quietly. "Sokka can take care of himself, and Suki can beat _us_ in a fight—"

This was true. The spar that had been Katara and Zuko versus Suki had been one that had gone down in legend among their little family. She'd knocked them both on their behinds, and stood and dusted her hands off like it hadn't even been a workout. Sokka had howled about it for weeks afterwards.

"—so we don't have anything to worry about."

"Stop trying to make me feel better," Katara said, but she could feel her lips quirking up just the very littlest bit. Stupid Zuko. Stupid, stupid Zuko.

He shrugged again. "What else do you want me to do?"

"Be less absurd."

"You make it sound so easy, waterbender."

"Being less absurd? It's completely easy. Just be someone else, _firebender_."

"Peasant!"

"Baldy!"

"You little—!"

"_You_ little—!"

"I am not little, _peasant_!"

"No, you're a great lug with no _brains_!"

And somehow they ended up wrestling right there on the ground, mud everywhere, and laughing like a pair of loons, loud and unafraid and tilting over the edge into something that was probably hysteria.

Sometimes, you had to laugh just so that you didn't cry.

They were both out of breath and covered all over in the earth when they finally stopped. Zuko took one look at her, and burst out into uncontrollable laughter again. "You're ridiculous."

"We're _both_ ridiculous," Katara said, decisively.

She looked a little better.

So did he.

"Hey," he said.

"Yeah?"

"Thanks."

"No problem," Katara smiled.

—

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_tbc_.

**notes2**: I figured out why it was being such a bitch. the title was wrong, and until I changed it, it refused to be written. so there you go, folks: do not underestimate the power of titles, because they will _fuck you up_.


	9. taste of ash on her tongue

**disclaimer**: disclaimed.  
**dedication**: 2SPOOKY  
**notes**: urghwkfejsklj that is all.

**chapter title**: taste of ash on her tongue  
**summary**: Zuko, Katara, and life after the war. — Zuko/Katara, others.

—

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Katara watched the phases of the moon.

Her brother and his fiancée were coming, and she needed to be in top form. There was something dark in her stomach that told her she would be bloodbending again—breaking a longstanding oath to never use it again.

Aang hated it.

Zuko did not.

"It's just another tool," he said quietly. "I've seen what you can do—"

"It's evil, Zuko. You don't—the thing about bloodbending is that it… it eats at you. Changes you. If you let it, it'll… pull you in," Katara tried to explain. It wasn't like lightning, she knew—maybe the concentration, but control of lightning didn't make a person succumb to insanity.

(Azula was not to be counted, because the insanity had probably always been there.)

Bloodbending did.

And there was no proper way to explain that to him, except to show him. Her body remember the motions unconscious, hands turning to spiders, and she concentrated until she could feel the movement of his blood beneath his skin. He ran hotter than anyone else she'd ever met—hotter even than other firebenders, but that only made the control easier.

She used his own energy against him.

Zuko found himself bent down on all fours, and Katara froze him like that, and then sat on him.

"See?" she asked so softly. "It's evil."

The pull of his blood was a hard song to resist. Katara wanted to immerse in it, in him, and let the rush of him pull her away from everything she had ever known. Zuko did that to her insides—he made her forget that there was good and evil.

He was the first person who'd ever taught her that the world was only varying greys. Black and white didn't exist—except for maybe Aang, but Aang was Aang. Sometimes, Katara thought that he lived in a different era. Sometimes she _knew_ he lived in a different era.

The war had made them all wary, but Aang had never lived it. He was fourteen and sulky, but Katara had been fourteen once, and she hadn't the time to be sulky. She'd had to be mother to so many of their allies—La, she'd been mother to her own _father_—and she'd been tired and sad, but she'd never had the _luxury_ of sulking.

Katara was older than her years.

She'd been older than her years for a very long time.

Zuko looked up at her. "I don't think it's evil."

"I do."

"Even if it was used to heal someone?"

"…Yes. It's wrong to invade someone like that," Katara said. Her shoulders slumped, and she sank down next to him. They did that a lot—just sat together, watched and waited, always on guard for the next threat.

Because there was always going to be another threat.

Always.

He studied her. "Would you hate me if I asked you to use it on someone?"

Katara considered this, and thought of how angry she'd been at him not a month previous. She'd always forgiven easily, but there were some things she could never forgive, and she had a sneaking suspicion about where he was going with this.

"I'm not going anywhere near your father unless it's to slit his throat," she said.

Zuko's smile was a twisted, ugly thing. "I don't blame you for that. But it's not him."

"Then… Azula?" she asked.

"I know she's in there, Katara," Zuko said. "I know it."

"I'd like to say I'd rather die," Katara said. "In case you don't remember, she shot lightning at me, and if you hadn't—" she still never knew what to call his taking lightning for her "—done what you did, I'd be dead."

"I thought you'd say that, so I—"

"I said I'd like to say I'd rather die. I didn't say I wouldn't do it."

"…I hate it when you do that double-negative thing," Zuko said.

Katara's lips curved upwards. "I'll give it a shot. Her mind, though… she's been… she's been the way she is for a long time. I don't know if I can fix that, Zuko. I don't want to get your hopes up, I really don't."

He looked like she'd just put pieces of his heart back in place. Katara tasted ash, and hated him and loved him and wanted to pretend that this whole thing wasn't happening. She couldn't heal a crazy person and hold a nation together all at once. Or, well, she could—but not with Sokka around.

Sokka was going to drive her as crazy as Azula, if nothing else.

The thought was ironic.

Brothers driving their sisters into insanity.

Must be a running theme, or something.

"So if Sokka and Suki are coming… does this mean Toph and Aang are going to show up sometime soon?" Katara asked.

"Toph comes around every six months or so to ruin the grounds and terrify my guards. Aang… I haven't seen Aang since…"

"Sorry about that," Katara said quietly. "That was my fault."

"It could have been worse," Zuko said.

And Katara thought _no, no, it couldn't have been worse. I kept the Avatar from doing his duty for two years. I—he—he's just a child, he's so small, I don't know what to do with him at all_—

She didn't realize she was speaking aloud until Zuko chuckled.

"He's fourteen, Katara. Of course he's going to be a handful."

"Sokka was never that bad," Katara grumbled.

"We were _all_ that bad," he reminded her. "You just ignored us, mostly, unless you were ordering us around."

"Excuse me, I did not ignore you," Katara said. She stuck her nose up in the air. "I didn't trust you as far as I could throw you."

"Technically, that's pretty far, Katara, you nearly threw me off a cliff once—" Zuko laughed and she shoved him hard enough to send him sprawling. He caught her and pulled her down with him, and they both had leaves in their hair, and this seemed to happen a lot, didn't it?

"You're such a jerk," Katara told him, fond.

"And you're a shrew, so we're even."

"A _shrew_? What is _that_ supposed to mean!?" Katara poked him in the side.

He squirmed away from her, but she was not about to let this go. "I am not a shrew! A shrew is like a… tiny vole-rat-thing, and I am way too pretty to be one of those things! Zuko, look at me and tell me I'm prettier than a shrew!"

"And if I don't?"

"I will make your life _very_ uncomfortable," she told him with a smile.

There was a restlessness to the way he moved, suddenly, and Katara thought _we're going to fight, and it's going to be violent, but La, I want it. Haven't fought in so long_—

Just as they rose into identical bending stances, the ground started to shake. Katara planted herself firmly, but there were no fault lines beneath the earth here, and that could only mean one thing.

The earth exploded, and a dirt-smeared girl landed in front of them.

"Awww, look, Sparky and Sugarqueen are at it again! Oi, Twinkletoes, get down here, they're going at it again. It'll be just like old times!"

Katara and Zuko stared in horror.

Toph stood in front of them, grinning like the sun.

This could only mean bad things.

Katara moaned.

"Oh, La, _why_?"

—

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_tbc_.


	10. cracks in the foundations

**disclaimer**: disclaimed.  
**dedication**: to angry raisin duck.  
**notes**: I might have forgotten about this fic oops

**chapter title**: cracks in the foundations  
**summary**: Zuko, Katara, and life after the war. — Zuko/Katara, others.

—

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Katara had nothing to say to Aang.

That was the crux of the matter, and the blood didn't drained away from her face as she waited, immobile, for her—ex?—friend to descend from his flying bison. It felt like much longer than it really had been, and Katara could feel Zuko go tense at her side.

Toph pointed her face in their direction, raised an eyebrow, and asked baldy "The hell has you two so mad, huh?"

Katara's shoulders drooped, and she nearly let out a great, tired sigh. "I'm not _mad_, Toph, I'm—"

Aang came sliding down Appa's tail right at that moment, bald and taller than she remembered, but still her goofy Avatar-boy. It'd barely been a month, and she hardly recognized him.

Zuko was a solid, warm weight by her side.

And she was caught between laughing and crying.

This was so—this was so _ridiculous_. Aang had been her friend for only months longer than Zuko had, but it was enough to make her want to cringe away and hide. This, this place and this time… in it, Katara was someone different. Zuko didn't need a mother. Katara got to be a person for one, not the one everyone looked to for answers and she—she _liked_ it.

She liked not having the responsibility and she liked being able to do what she pleased and go where she wanted and ruin whatever she felt like ruining.

The Fire Nation wasn't home, but Katara was freer here than she'd ever been at the South Pole. Freer than she'd ever been standing at Aang's side, which is where she'd always thought she'd belonged.

Oh Spirits, she was going to be sick.

"Oi, Sugarqueen, you feeling alright?"

Katara had to smile.

Toph was never going to change.

"I'm fine, Toph," Katara said, and forced herself to smile.

"Zuko, the coolest thing just—_Katara_?"

"Hello, Aang," she managed. She swallowed back the bile, and looked him in the eyes, and she smiled and smiled and smiled. What else was she supposed to do?

"What—I—why aren't you at the South Pole?"

Her lips thinned into a line that barely skimmed her teeth. She wasn't going to snap at him, she wasn't, she wasn't—

"Katara's here because Uncle invited her," Zuko said before Katara had to come up with a reasonable excuse.

The real reason she was here seemed flimsy in comparison. She watched the cogs work in Aang's mind, and Katara counted down backwards from ten to zero. Three, two, one—

"But… you said the Pole needed you," Aang said.

He looked lost and so incredibly young. Katara wrapped her arms around herself and looked at the ground. She wasn't ready to have this fight. She'd thought she'd have more time to come up with a decent argument, but apparently not.

"I guess the Fire Nation needs me, too," she said, and didn't even look in his direction.

"I guess it does," said Aang.

He glared at the ground, too, and everyone was quiet.

"…Ugh, you people are so clueless. Whatever. Sparky, be a good host and invite us inside, I'm hungry!"

Leave it to Toph to make any awkward situation _even worse_. Katara shouldn't have even been surprised, but in the two years since she'd really spent any time with Toph, she seemed to have lost her immunity to the girl's utter brashness.

Zuko sighed out fond exasperation. "C'mon, Bandit, let's find you something to eat. Aang…?"

Aang's eyes turned to round grey marbles, and he clutched at Appa's regins. "I'll, uh, just take Appa to the stables. Okay?"

Zuko frowned. "Someone else can do that, Aang, you should probably eat something—"

"No," Aang said, and Katara knew that tone of voice. That was Aang's _I'm going to be stupidly stubborn and nothing you say will change my mind_ voice, the one that always sent her into near fits of rage. There was nothing Zuko could say or do that would stop Aang from putting his sky bison into the stables on his own, and Katara really, really hoped that Zuko wasn't even going to try. "I'll put Appa in, and then I'll catch up."

Zuko looked like he was going to argue.

Katara played peacemaker again (again and again and again; it was never going to end).

"Hey," she said. "It's okay. Let Aang do what he needs to do. I'm pretty hungry, anyway."

This was a lie.

(If you're going to lie, at least make your lie a pretty one.)

"Twinkles, meet us in the dining hall in ten minutes," Toph instructed. She set her hands on meager hips and glared straight in Aang's direction. "If you don't show, I'll come looking for you, and you _won't_ like it."

"Of course, Sifu," Aang said, and he grinned horribly in Toph's direction.

"Shut your face," Toph said arily. "Sparky, carry me. Sugarqueen, be a dear and grab my bags, okay?"

Neither Katara nor Zuko knew quite what to say.

It was probably a good thing they didn't say anything at all, honestly.

Aang didn't look at Katara as he handed her Toph's bags. He was starting to hit a growth spurt, Katara thought distantly. He was growing up so fast, and she was missing it. There was a cruel beauty to it.

Something deep inside her chest ached.

"I'm sorry," she said quietly.

Aang blazed light and life; jerked his up and really _glared_ at her. She'd never really been on the receiving end of this, and Katara found that she very much didn't like it.

"Sorry?" he repeated. "_Sorry_? How does being _sorry_ help?"

"It doesn't," Katara said, voice a very gentle lull. She'd seen Aang worse than this; she'd seen him turn an uncontrollable blue and destroying half a kingdom without a single thought for the rest of the entire world. She'd seen him cry, seen him upset, seen him when he had absolutely no idea where to turn next.

But she'd never seen him look so betrayed, before.

"I'm sorry, Aang. I'm—I'm so sorry," she said.

"Sorry doesn't _cut_ it," Aang replied.

And then he hauled on Appa's reigns, and promptly dragged the sky bison off towards the stables. Katara hugged herself, and watched him leave.

He looked so small on the horizon.

She turned, and headed back into the Fire Palace.

The only thing she felt was very, very cold.

—

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_tbc_.


	11. if you should go right now

**disclaimer**: disclaimed.  
**dedication**: to **drunkzutarafeels**, Jupiter, and V.  
**notes**: barfs.

**chapter title**: if you should go right now  
**summary**: Zuko, Katara, and life after the war. — Zuko/Katara, others.

—

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Katara crumpled against the wall in the guest room she'd long claimed as her own, breathing fast and shallow. She'd fled Toph's ugly smirk and Zuko's knowing eyes without a second thought to either of them; hiding was easier for now, until she'd managed to settle her mind around Aang.

The world was moving too fast, and she'd lost her footing somewhere along the way.

Getting it back was her main priority, right then.

She didn't forget what she represented. She was two nations' hope for peace and prosperity, and she couldn't let herself forget it. It was writ right into her very skin, after a month in the Fire Nation's capital—Aang might have been the Avatar, but sometimes Katara thought that he was an intangible thing with the way he was always disappearing to some other part of the world. So she didn't forget. She couldn't.

And there was Zuko to consider, too.

Zuko and _Azula_, more like.

All of Katara's memories of the Fire Princess were a jumble of terror and the acrid taste of burnt wood in her mouth. There was no line, nothing that ever stated the Princess went from _manipulative_ to _crazy_, because to Katara, it all looked the same.

Azula had spent so much time trying to kill them.

It was a mercy that they'd all gotten out alive.

Or at least some semblance of alive. Katara thought of the long nights at the Pole, Aang's face a war between his want and his fear in the bright white of the sun off the snow, and her own cowardice. _Coward_, she told herself. _Coward_!

Katara shuddered, and wrapped her arms tighter around herself. The silence ate at the back of her eyes and calmed her all at once, and there was no telling it different. She leaned her head against the wall and took great gulps of wet air into her lungs until she'd stopped blubbering and her stomach wasn't in her throat anymore.

The knock on the door was echoey-loud in her ears.

"Get out here, Sugarqueen, you're being lame," Toph said, and barged through the door.

Katara had time to think she was lucky that the tiny earthbender-girl hadn't just smashed through the door before Toh bowled her over and stood over her with her tiny hands on her hips. Fourteen-year-old Toph was twelve-year-old Toph, only with more back-talk and less tact, if that was even possible.

"Hi, Toph," Katara sighed in reply.

"Hei Bai, you actually _are_ hiding! Sparky wasn't lying, _wow_, I owe him an apology. Oh well, whatever—get _up_, Sweetness, we got things to do," Toph said, matter-of-fact, and stomped the floor to have the marble push Katara into standing.

A helpless little giggle escaped Katara. That was so _Toph_.

"Do I get a choice?" Katara asked.

"Do you ever get a choice," Toph asked rhetorically. She'd already bounced to Katara's vanity and was rooting around in the drawers. "Got any food, Sweetness? Sparky wouldn't _feed_ me, what an ass, right? And Twinkles totally sucks about food—seriously, I need _meat_, okay? I need _meat_!"

Katara smothered a giggle behind a hand. "You sound like Sokka."

Toph went a little stiff, spine turning to metal beneath her skin in a move that had always been her first defense when anyone mentioned Katara's brother.

"Yeah," Toph said, soft, "I guess I do."

And Katara knew the soft, sweet look on Toph's face. It was something that the girl had never wanted anyone to know, but Katara knew that being in love with someone who didn't love you back was _hard_.

And Sokka and Suki were going to be at the palace in a fortnight.

"…Toph," Katara said quietly, "you know about…"

"Sokka and Suki?" Toph finished the sentence for her. There was a funny, bitter little smile on her face. "Yeah, I know. Twinkles told me."

Katara didn't ask if she was alright.

She knew it would only hurt Toph more.

But Toph turned her face towards her friend and raised an eyebrow in Katara's direction. "Don't look like that," she instructed. "Your pity makes me wanna vomit."

"Very nice," Katara sighed.

"No, _seriously_, Sugarqueen. We're in the Fire Nation—and may I remind you that if it was like a _year_ ago, they'd be trying to _kill_ us—and you're hiding in here away from Twinkles. Twinkletoes! Short and bald and _Twinkles_!" Toph emphasized his name again, for good measure. "_Twinkles_!"

"Yes, Toph, I got that," Katara made a face. "I just…"

"Dunno what to say to him? _Please_. You can at least give it to him straight. I mean, we _all_ know you're so not into him it's painful—it's actually awful, even Twinkles can see it, and you _know_ how oblivious he is—but at least have the guts to tell him to his face!" Toph stared at her unblinkingly, hands on her hips, and lips pulled down.

This last for a minute, until Toph grimaced and went "Ew, I sound like _you_."

_That_ startled a laugh out of Katara. "You _do_! Getting old, Toph?"

Toph wrinkled her nose. "Not as old as you, Sweetness. Never as old as you."

"Says the girl who refuses to cut her hair," Katara smiled.

"Stick with me, kid," said Toph, and slung an arm around her waist as she smirked. "You'll go places!"

"Somehow, I don't doubt it," Katara said, and smiled a little as she ruffled her fingers through Toph's bangs. "Your hair really is getting out of control, though, you know?"

"It's not like I can see it anyway, Sugarqueen," Toph said impatiently. "Does it really matter?"

"In front of all those Fire nobles, it might," Katara replied, grim.

"Please, those old guys ain't got nothin' on me. I could knock them on their asses without even _moving_," said Toph.

"I know you could, but…"

"But maybe I shouldn't, yeah, I know how it works, Sweetness. Twinkles's taken me to all sorts 'a meetings, y'know?"

Yes, Katara did know.

Katara knew how those things went very well.

—

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_tbc_.


	12. from the desert to the sea

**disclaimer**: disclaimed.  
**dedication**: to Jupe and V.  
**notes**: don't look at me, I don't know what I'm doing anymore.

**chapter title**: from the desert to the sea  
**summary**: Zuko, Katara, and life after the war. — Zuko/Katara, others.

—

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Supper that night was unusually tense. It didn't take a scholar to know why—Aang kept sending Katara polarbeardog-pup eyes a deep longing that everyone present could nearly feel, it was so palpable. It was deeply uncomfortable for everyone involved, and it likely would have lasted a good deal longer if not for Toph and Uncle Iroh. Together, they quite cheerfully pulled Aang's attention away from Katara's ducked head and sad eyes.

"So tell us, Avatar, what have you been doing?"

It also took the attention away from Zuko long enough for him to nudge at Katara with his foot. She looked up at him and Zuko concentrated very hard on the words _I'm sorry. Are you okay_?

She seemed the have gotten the message, because she smiled out of the corner of her mouth, just a little. And for a second Zuko saw her again, the girl who'd threatened his life with her eyes like Azula's blue fire, burning and raging and consuming everything in its path.

Then that girl was gone, and Katara turned her face away.

But she was still there, really; the fifteen-year-old with her chin stuck out, ice needles in the air as they snuck through the night to find the man who killed her mother. She was almost seventeen, now, and she stood spine straight, open smile.

Sometimes, Zuko thought that Katara was more desperate than he was.

And he watched her watch Aang only when the Avatar wasn't looking at her; it was like she was searching for something that she just couldn't quite find, searching for a reason to go back. There was a quiet sadness to her, steel beneath the surface; Katara was an arc of frozen water, the icy loveliness still in her face, deep in her bones. He thought he could see the moon in her.

Except that if there was one thing that Zuko knew, it was that there was no going back.

There was never any going back.

Zuko tried to catch Katara's gaze again, but she just looked down at her plate and pushed her hair out of her eyes. It was a silent thing—the shine and _click_ of bone against shell was absent from her hair. She wore Earth Kingdom brown-and-green.

He wondered about that.

Because whether it was in deference to Toph or Aang, he couldn't tell. But the colours didn't suit her at all. It was too… inoffensive.

And if there was anything Katara of the Southern Water Tribe was _not_, it was inoffensive.

Because Zuko remembered her at fourteen with merciless death in her eyes, a tiny slip of girl teetering on the precipice of womanhood and the acrid taste of revenge, hair all around her face. She'd been dangerous then, and she was dangerous now. It was just that no one else saw it.

(And they had not felt her grip their hearts in their chests—had not felt their bodies lose individual control to her as she held a dagger of pure shining ice to their throats. They hadn't felt the fear. They didn't know the awe, because Toph and Aang were still children that way. The magic and invincibility of youth hadn't left them, yet.)

No, Earth Kingdom colours did not suit Katara at all.

He watched for a moment more as she continued to pick at her food. She was resolutely avoiding his gaze as resolutely as she was avoiding Aang's. Zuko got the distinct feeling that she was going to lose any little bit of emotional control she had left if she really looked at either of them.

War was a hard thing.

But coming back was harder.

"Oi, Sparky. Sparky! Listen to me!" Toph snapped her fingers in front of Zuko's face. She gave him a look like she'd quite like to punch him in the throat (it was amazing that a blind girl could even manage to _pull_ that face).

Given that this was Toph, he had no doubt she'd do exactly that if he didn't do what she wanted.

"Yes, Toph?" Zuko sighed.

She set down the dumpling she'd speared on a fork, and looked right at him—that was _eerie_, how did she _do_ that—and wrinkled her nose.

"Bumi sends his greetings," she said. "Old geezer thinks he can use me as a messenger dragonhawk, I'll show him. I am going to turn his ass to _rubble_…"

No one mentioned that Toph had fallen into the crafty old king's trap. It was probably better that way, because Katara had to cover her mouth to smother her laughter, Aang looked concerned, and Zuko felt like he was sixteen again. Like he was sitting with the Avatar's folk for the first time in his life, Uncle chortling merrily at his side. He could almost feel the firelight and the misty air, the quiet, and the knowledge that they were the only people alive for miles and miles.

But Sokka was missing, that Water Tribe moron.

It wasn't right without him there.

Aang laughed at something Toph said, then looked guility towards Katara. Now, _that_ was interesting, though Zuko. The laughter wasn't new, but the guilt was.

Zuko knew that guilt.

He'd felt it himself when he'd almost smiled at Katara then thought of Mai, those first few days. It had been a sharp guilt, stabbed at the back of his throat, rendered him near speechless with self-loathing.

Only Mai was gone, looking for distance and happiness that he could never give her. He'd heard she threw knives for Ty Lee's circus, these days. He heard that sometimes she almost smiled.

Mai was gone.

But the woman with the dark skin and the soft smile at his side was not.

She was there to help stop a war. She was there to kill his enemies in the night, keep his council on their toes, leave assassins frozen to her wall with their hearts burst in their chests. She was there to keep him in check. It was okay. It was okay.

Zuko breathed in, felt the fire and the ash on his tongue.

Aang laughed at Toph, again. And he winced as the guilt hit, looked at Zuko with pleading, tired eyes that yearned for something that was long dead.

And he was still so young. The Avatar was still so young.

Katara didn't notice anything, probably on purpose.

Zuko didn't blame her at all.

—

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_tbc_.


	13. roll with the punches

**disclaimer**: disclaimed.  
**dedication**: to Jupiter, because she always knows what she's on about.  
**notes**: barfs.  
**notes2**: god _damn_ it, this found a plot. why did that have to happen?

**chapter title**: roll with the punches  
**summary**: Zuko, Katara, and life after the war. — Zuko/Katara, others.

—

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Katara fled as soon as was considered polite, and honestly she only lasted that long on account of Uncle sitting at the table. If it had been anyone else, she would have deliberated on going _Koh take you all_, and left early. But this was Uncle, and he had always been good to her. She couldn't do that to him, Aang or no Aang.

The night air was cool on her skin as she burst outside. A month and a half in the palace was more than enough time to have given her a good grasp of the palace's corridors and secret passages—she knew the red halls as well as anyone. Certainly better than Aang, and she lost him somewhere behind her without even having to try.

She ended up outside, taking deep gulping breath after deep gulping breath of blessedly cool, misty air.

"I thought you'd be out here."

She didn't ask him how he'd found her. That was what Zuko was good at—finding people who didn't want to be found He'd always been good at it (and how could he not be, when he'd followed them halfway around the world without having a real trail to follow? That was the current Fire Lord all over).

"When are you going to learn that sometimes a girl needs space?" she asked.

"Mai needed to be alone a lot."

Katara snorted. "Nice bomb to drop there, Zuko."

He shrugged, shuffled a little closer. "It's the truth. She needed to be alone a lot."

Katara tilted her head back to look up at the bright, far away pin-prick-glitter of stars scattered across the sky. It was beautiful, but just as sad for it. She knew that this was the dead of rainy season, when no one should be able to breathe for the water in the air. The fact that stars still twinkled was terrifying in its implications.

"I don't blame her," Zuko said quietly.

"You don't blame anyone for anything," Katara said, just as softly. "Except yourself. You blame yourself all the time."

"There's usually a reason for that."

She rolled her eyes. "Shush up, Lord Angst. We're all doing what we can."

"Do you really believe that?"

Katara kept her eyes on the stars to quell the churning in her gut. In the confusion of Toph and Aang's sudden arrival, she'd forgotten that she and Zuko could never have a normal conversation. Every question was loaded, no matter how she looked at it—it was just how they were.

That fact that she'd forgotten at all made her feel vaguely sick.

"Yes," she said.

The breath left him in a single great rush. For a split-second, there was a bright flicker of flame and ash, and then it was gone. He slumped next to her, the scar around his eye looking more pronounced than ever in the half-light from inside the palace. He looked… tired. And like he needed a hug and a _whack_ upside the head a la Gran-Gran, neither of which Katara could really achieve properly.

Instead, she moved just enough that she was pressed up against his side, because that was all she could do just then.

She didn't have the rights to more than that.

And she didn't even know if she _wanted_ those rights.

Because Aang.

It would destroy Aang. It would _destroy_ him. And Katara—Katara was _obligated_ to Aang. She needed to take care of him, because she was—she was the only family he'd ever—the only _girl_ he'd ever—

Oh, Spirits.

A tiny laugh escaped her, a little bit resigned, a little bit hysteric. Oh, _Spirits_.

"Katara?" asked Zuko.

"Why can't I treat him like an adult, Zuko?" she asked. Her breath came harsh; too fast, too shallow. She pressed her face into her hands, and her next words were muffled with it. "Why can't I—why does it always have to be—?"

He didn't wrap his arms around her, though Katara was startled to realize that that was exactly what she wanted him to do. A far-off part of her shook it's head in the back of her mind, like it had been expecting a betrayal like this.

"…You remember the Western Air Temple," he said.

It wasn't a question.

"Yes."

"We treated him like a son, Katara."

"How."

Zuko sighed again. He seemed to be doing that a lot, these days. But then, Katara reflected, he'd always done that a lot, poor awkward princeling that he was.

"We built ourselves a family, Katara. It was—" he stopped, looked to be trying to find the right words. Struggled for them. A breath. "It was the first real family I'd ever had. It was the same for Aang, too."

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"You _mothered_ him," Zuko said, shaking his head, weary in the mouth but oddly patient. "It's all he knows. It's all _you_ know."

"So?" she asked, though she had a very dark feeling about where he was going with this. She could see it shimmering in the distance, his point, and she didn't like it one bit.

"So you're never going to be able to stop."

"What makes you say that?!"

Zuko just looked at her. Steady, regretful, but with a sheen of bitterness that she didn't understand. "Do you think you'll ever be able to stop? Mothering him, Katara. Do you think you can stop?"

"I—"

But the protest died on her lips.

He was right.

It hurt.

And Katara thought back to the South Pole in the blinding sunlight, and the sheer hope on Aang's face as he looked at her like she was benediction. As though she was salvation. And she thought of the revulsion that had taken her, and the fear. The fear had grabbed a chokehold around her throat, sang in her ear _trapped, trapped, trapped, no more adventures, trapped_!

She was going to vomit.

"Oh, La," she managed.

And then she bent over the balcony, and emptied the contents of her stomach onto the rosebushes below.

"The gardeners are going to hate you," Zuko said conversationally. He held her hair back from her face without having to be asked, and the warmth of his fingers a spot to concentrate on against her temples.

Katara sagged into him, and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

"Let them," she said weakly. "I don't care."

"You should," he chuckled. He was very solid. "They'll turn the cooks against you."

"Shut up, _Sparky_," Katara emphasized the nickname.

"I'll drop you," Zuko threatened.

"No, you won't," Katara murmured so softly that it might have been nothing more than a breath of air. Her eyelids flickered closed.

"How do you know?"

"You like me too much," she told him, eyes still closed.

Silence, for a moment.

"That's true," he said at last. "Come on. Let's get you into bed, you look like you're going to die, peasant."

"Traitor. I just might," Katara mumbled into his chest.

He lifted her as easily as he'd lift a feather, but Katara didn't notice, even though her hands curled into the fabric of his robe.

She was too busy dreaming.

It was a serious business, you know.

—

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_tbc_.


	14. the sky is falling through

**disclaimer**: disclaimed.  
**dedication**: to my moirail.  
**notes**: _Risk_ is very serious business in my family.

**chapter title**: the sky is falling through  
**summary**: Zuko, Katara, and life after the war. — Zuko/Katara, others.

—

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Katara woke in her bed to pale grey light filtering through the windows.

There was a momentary disorientation, because the last thing she remembered was nearly—ugh, Spirits, had that actually happened—vomiting on Zuko on the balcony with the stars twinkling cheerily overhead.

"This is the _worst_," Katara muttered to herself as she clambered out of bed. The dark red of the sheets twisted tight 'round her legs. She was going to have to do something about that—she missed the soft navy blue she'd grown up with, and for certain the Fire Nation must have blue _dye_; it wasn't lie there was a lack of ice roses—

Except that there rather was.

She sighed, and pulled her sleeping shift off. The air was muggy and too warm against her, thick with water in the air, and the silk stuck to her skin peeled off slow. Her chest wrappings were clean, which was nice. Not too much else was, today. Her wardrobe was near bare, except for long sweeping robes that looked like they ought to be on someone much older than she.

"Why is there no _practical_ clothing in this place? What do _normal_ people wear?!" Katara asked aloud. She was not expecting (and not wanting, for that matter) an answer.

"Oi, Sugarqueen, you in there? Sparky said breakfast is ready, and I wanna get on with the day!"

Katara jumped a near foot in the air. Leave it to Toph to ruin a perfectly decent morning. The girl had thrown the door open, and there she stood with hands on meagre hips, open-face and squinty-eyed (not that that last one did anyone any good).

"Good morning to you, too, Toph," Katara said, rolling her eyes towards the ceiling.

"Didn't you hear me? Up! Food! Meat! Komodo rhinos!"

Komodo rhinos?

That didn't sound like anything good.

"Promise me you won't destroy anything important," Katara said. She tied up her hair—a thick bun, today, to keep the dark, curly mass off her neck—and finished tying a wide purple length of fabric around her waist to keep her red dress in place. Purple was a good colour, she thought. Not as good as blue, but close.

Her armguards glinted tauntingly in the drawer.

She'd put them away after the war, and hadn't worn the since. She hadn't needed to wear them, not even when she'd first come to this palace and these people with these assassins, because she'd been old enough and bitter enough to deal with them on her own. She hadn't needed the courage they afforded her.

Katara looked at them for a moment longer, and then she grimly strapped them on. There was no telling what she was about to get herself into, and she had a very bad feeling that this was probably going to lead to a war.

(Like they needed another one. Her breath hitched in her throat, wanting and wanting.)

Because when Toph Bei Fong mentioned komodo rhinos, it was always prudent to wear one's thickest armour.

—

"Do you hear it?"

"Hear what?" Katara asked. She was too busy being distracted by the water in the air, the pull of the moon hidden by the sun's rays. She picked at the honey melon in front of her, nails bit sharply into the soft, sweet flesh.

"The sound of Toph and Aang planning to ruin my life," Zuko said miserably.

And indeed, the pair of them looked towards where Toph and Aang sat, heads bent together as they whispered urgently like children with a secret. Every so often, one of them would look up and eye the Fire Lord speculatively. Katara was also the subject of Toph's scrutiny (though this seemed beyond pointless, she would like to point out).

But not Aang's, so that was alright.

Whether or not she decided to try things again with Aang was moot, now, Katara thought bitterly. She'd had too much of her own freedom, now, to simply be The Avatar's Wife. She was an Ambassador in her own right, and she'd helped save the world.

_Let them try_, she thought viciously. _Let them __**try**__ to make me go back. Just __**let them try**_.

Besides.

There was too much growing up to be done, right now to even think about love. There were too many things to protect.

Including the palace.

"So she told you about the rhinos?" Katara asked. She reached over and patted his arm sympathetically for a moment. It was all the comfort she could give him, because while she did feel bad for him, his own stupidity at encouraging Toph's less-than-intelligent schemes was entirely his own fault.

His head snapped up, and Zuko stared at her, wide-eyed and horrified. "What? Rhinos?! She didn't say anything about rhinos! She said she wanted to try Azula's mongoose dragons, because they _climb_!"

Katara stared at him. _Poor boy_, she thought. _He has no idea_.

"Toph lies, Zuko," Katara said slowly, as though she was speaking to a child. "Especially when she wants to do dangerous things. Remember?"

"No," said Zuko, rather stupidly. "No. She can't have. That's—no."

"She definitely said rhinos, Zuko," she told him gently. "Maybe you should go stop them?"

Zuko nodded. There was something a little manic in his eyes. It was an emotion Katara had seen on him before, many times, but none quite so prominent as right then. He was afraid.

Because of Toph Bei Fong.

(This came as a surprise to _absolutely no one_.)

"Good ide—where in Agni's name did they _go_?"

From far away, they both heard. "DAMN IT, TWINKLES, THEY CAUGHT ON. RUN, STUPID, _RUN_!"

There was a moment of silence.

And then:

"I'm going to _kill_ her," Zuko swore. He jumped up from the table, and headed straight for the door. The Fire Lord ran, robes flapping ridiculously behind him like an oversized wolfbat as he headed for the stables.

Katara had no doubt that Toph and Aang were through the stables an on the beasts, already. Long gone, by now. She smiles a little.

Just like old times.

"Lady Katara! A lovely morning to you, my dear!

Katara looked up from her fruit. Iroh's ever-amicable smile met her own, and she raised a single eyebrow at him. He was far too cheerful for such an early morning. She linked her fingers, settled her elbows on the table and rested her chin on her hands as she gave him the morning's perfunctory once-over.

He dug into his breakfast with gusto. Katara didn't bother to hide her affection for the old man.

"Was it you who told Toph about the komodo rhinos, Uncle?" Katara asked, voice light. "That wasn't very nice, you know."

Iroh chortled. He held a cup of tea, but did not spill a drop. "Oh, my dear," he said." Whatever makes you think it was I?"

"I know you, Uncle," she said. Her mouth was curving up into a proper smile. It might not have been nice, but it _was_ rather amusing. How often did one see the Fire Lord running for his life?

(Katara cut that thought off. Perhaps the Fire Lord needed to run for his life more often than she cared to admit.)

"Ah, Lady Katara," said Iroh. He shook a finger at her, and his face turned solemn. "A single spark can start a fire that burns the entire prairie."

"Then you are the match?" she asked.

"Perhaps," he laughed. "And perhaps my rooms simply needed to be refurbished."

Katara snorted with her mirth, but she did not take his words at face value. Iroh was an old knife, but no less sharp for the age. There was still fire in him—she remembered the Eclipse, remembered how he had set the world alight with his breath alone, remembered the awe when she'd finally understood why they called him _Dragon_.

She remembered the Lotus tiles.

She did not underestimate.

Because after that, though, all she could think of was Azula. Azula, and blue fire, blue lightning, and Zuko.

Zuko, Zuko, _Zuko_.

Katara shook the thoughts away. She had to be going crazy, and that was entirely useless at this point in time. There was already one crazy girl in the castle; they wouldn't be able to handle another.

And so she stood up, and offered Iroh a hand.

"Would you like to come help me stop your nephew from committing a murder that would render the treaty with the Earth Kingdom null and void?" she asked.

Iroh chortled again, shoulders shaking with the force of it. "No, my dear," he said.

Katara eyed him. Iroh flapped a hand at her. "Go on, Lady Katara. I do not worry. You will both be fine."

He paused, and his face curved into an angelic smile.

"After all, you have him well in hand."

Katara coloured brightly, and ran for it.

—

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_tbc_.


	15. drowning in sincerity

**disclaimer**: disclaimed.  
**dedication**: to the Senshi.  
**notes**: barfs.

**chapter title**: drowning in sincerity  
**summary**: Zuko, Katara, and life after the war. — Zuko/Katara, others.

—

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Five hours later, Zuko stomped back into the castle, scowling furiously, and dragging a very sheepish Avatar and a not-sheepish-at-all heiress behind him. They were all splattered with mud and looking horribly windswept. Aang's eyebrows were singed.

Katara looked up from her tea cup, and thought vaguely that they were all hopeless. She glanced between them, and could only shake her head.

"You better go get cleaned up," she said.

Zuko muttered something obscene under his breath, and dropped Toph and Aang in front of Katara without another word. He stood over the pair of them, steaming (both figuratively and literally—there was thin white smoke hissing out of the corners of his mouth), arms crossed over his chest.

Katara had never seen something so funny in her entire life.

"You have mud in your hair," she told him succinctly, as Aang continued to be chastised and Toph continued to not give a single fuck. She was also perfectly content, as though she hadn't done anything wrong, and Zuko was overreacting.

(Again.)

But of course she had. This was Toph. It she wasn't causing trouble, or chasing pirates, or proclaiming herself the Lord of the Fruit or something, the world would likely stop turning.

Plus, komodo rhinos.

It was a thing.

"I hate _everything_," he said tightly, this time through his teeth. There was a manic little gleam in his eye, though, and all of Katara's good sense told her that she needed to get him away from the two young benders _as soon as possible_. At least, that was what she ought to do if said two young benders wanted to keep their eyebrows for much longer.

"Go get clean," she sighed. "I'll deal with these two."

The look he shot her was so full of gratitude, it _almost_ made up for the fact that Katara was going to have to talk to Aang, alone, properly, for the first time since that horrible conversation when he and Toph had appeared out of thin air.

But from the way Zuko was glaring, gold eyes narrowed down to the darkest, most furious slits she had ever seen, Katara had a feeling that he was much better off getting out while he could. The gratitude would have to do for now.

He so owed her, though.

(And that wasn't counting all the times she'd—no, now was not the time to count out all the ways that Zuko owed her. She could do that later, when she didn't have two rambunctious teenagers on her hands. When had she stopped being rambunctious, anyway? Had she ever been rambunctious? Was this even worth thinking about?)

Katara crossed her arms, and eyeballed them both. "Aang, I'm sure you know where the baths are—" she paused, and her gaze turned stormy "—and, _whatever_ you do, _don't_ bother Zuko. Toph… come with me."

"But, Katara…"

"You heard me, Aang!"

He grumbled, ducked his head—Katara thought _grow up_—and then he whirled around, bent himself an air scooter, and scooted off. Good, let Zuko knock some sense into him. Katara turned to Toph, eyebrow raised.

"I regret _nothing_," said Toph.

"You're going to regret _this_," Katara said in reply, face drawn into something frightful and forbidding. "I _promise_."

"You know, Sweetness, you're startin' to sound a bit like Sparky, there," Toph said thoughtfully. She reached up and patted Katara's face. "Yup, look, you can _feel_ the brooding all over you! Jeesk, he's corrupted you already!"

Katara's smile was forced. She was very glad Toph couldn't see it. "You just don't know when to quit, do you?"

"Nope," said Toph cheerfully. "Anyway, about that clean thing, could we just not do that? That'd be gre—"

Katara slapped a hand over Toph's mouth, and without further ado, bodily dragged the tiny earthbender to her private bath. Nothing deterred her, not even her friend's kicking or the mud on her clothes.

Sometimes, there were just things that needed to be done.

This was one of them.

Katara proceeded to nearly drown the girl in soapy water, and she did not feel a single iota of remorse, even when Toph made ugly choking noises when the water hit her straight in the face. "Are you _trying_ to kill me?!"

"Possibly," Katara said. Her voice was saccharine, and she started in on Toph's hair without being asked. "So what happened? Uncle and I left after you tried to bury Zuko. We got hungry, and we figured you probably wouldn't kill him."

Toph's sightless eyes glazed over dreamily. "Oh, Sweetness, you should have seen it. Sparky got his royal ass _kicked_, it was great—I think you woulda appreciated the irony of it."

Katara snorted. "Of course."

"No, really! 'Specially when Twinkles tried to set Sparky's robes on fire and accidentally singed his own eyebrows, instead. _Classic_!"

"How do you even know that?"

"I know _everything_, Sugarqueen."

"Toph…"

Toph waved a hand, having lost interest in the topic already. "It doesn't matter how I know, just that I do. Anyway, what's this I hear about you and Sifu Hotman, hm?"

"You've been talking to Uncle, haven't you," Katara said. It was not a question.

Toph's answering grin was stretched wide and white, bright even against the pale of her skin. "What makes you think that?"

Katara was not impressed. "What did he _say_, Toph?!"

"Oh, nothing. Just that you and the Hotman have been spending a lot of time together, that's all."

She thought desperately about killing them both when no one was looking. No one would notice if the Dragon of the West and the Bei Fong heiress went missing, especially not if they disappeared at the same time. Definitely not. Because what had she done to deserve this?! Okay, maybe pestering Aunt Wu hadn't been such a great idea, and stealing all that food while they'd been trying to keep Aang alive long enough to save the world couldn't have helped—but she'd been helping to save the world! Couldn't the Spirits cut a girl some slack?

Toph kept grinning madly.

So apparently not.

Katara expelled a great breath. "Of course we're spending a lot of time together, Toph," she said. "I'm here as an ambassador, remember? I spend three mornings a week yelling at his advisors—which, by the way, is a huge waste of time when I could be sleeping. They're all idiots, I swear to La—so of course we see each other. We kind of _have_ to!"

The grinning did not look to be anything close to stopping.

"Stop that."

"Nope," replied Toph, still grinning.

"I will drown you," threatened Katara tiredly. There had to be something that she could say to get Toph off this particular topic—"Anyway, what about you? What about _Sokka_?"

Toph went very still. Her face went blank, lips went tight, and a sadness settled onto her shoulder that made Katara's stomach ache. It was a feeling she didn't think she could put a name to, but if she had to try, she would call it _heartbreak_.

Maybe this hadn't been such a good idea, after all.

"You know that he and Suki…" Katara started.

Toph cut her off. "I know they're getting married, okay? I know! I get it, alright? He loves her! Everyone keeps tiptoeing around me, and it's stupid and it's driving me _crazy_! I'm over it. Who cares."

"Oh Toph," Katara murmured, achingly gentle. "No, you're not."

She wrapped soap-slick arms around Toph's neck in some sort of half-hug that might have been for comfort, might have been for sorrow. She was not disappointed when her friend only curled her fingers around her wrist. She did not push her away.

"I have to be," Toph whispered. "I _have_ to."

And then she turned and pressed her face into Katara's throat, and didn't make another sound.

—

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_tbc_.


	16. heaving through corrupted lungs

**disclaimer**: disclaimed.  
**dedication**: to Rhys, for all the lady talk.  
**notes**: if you haven't read _the last unicorn_, you are doing life wrong.  
**notes2**: Suki is better than everyone. fight me.

**chapter title**: heaving through corrupted lungs  
**summary**: Zuko, Katara, and life after the war. — Zuko/Katara, others.

—

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"Rice prices are getting out of hand," Zuko told Katara, the day that Sokka and Suki were supposed to arrive. They sat in his study. It was a dark-wood-panelled room, hung with sheer orange curtains that lit up like living fire when the morning sun poured through, and there was an old cherry desk and a squishy comfortable couch covered in pillows for secret naps. It was a quiet, private place. They both liked it very much.

From across the desk, Katara didn't even look up. She simply nodded, gaze skating down the scroll she'd been studying for the past hour and a half.

"Of course they are," she said. "The Earth Kingdom nobles demanded that embargo, remember? Kuei and Bumi shot it down, but…" She shook her head. "Koh take them all."

Zuko stared. "How do you even know that?"

Katara shrugged a shoulder. "Toph's dad was yammering about it the one time we—I—went to visit. He wouldn't shut up about how much the Fire Nation owed the world. You pick things up."

"Wow."

"I, uh, might have yelled at him," Katara grinned, some cross between horrible and unashamed. "Loudly. Toph was impressed."

She didn't mention Aang's reaction, and Zuko had enough tact not to bring it up.

"Nobles make me angry," Katara continued. "They're think they're so much better than everyone else, and the—the only thing they respect is money. Not family. Not honestly. Just… wealth. I can see why Toph wanted to leave."

"What about the Avatar?"

"They don't respect him, either," she said. "Here, sign this."

Zuko took the scroll from her, grimacing. He looked to be about to start whining, but Katara sent him such a stern look that he kept quiet.

"Remember what you said about… mothering?"

"Yeah?" Zuko asked.

"He was thirteen, and I… They could see it, I think. Maybe I pretended not to notice, or just, I don't know, lied to myself maybe? But they could see it. So they didn't respect him. But he's just—he's just a kid. Avatar or not."

She didn't think he knew how to answer that. Katara couldn't really blame him—she was beginning to come to terms with it, herself. With her own freedom, and with her own choices. With all the things that made her the person she was, and the things she did, and the people she loved.

She set her quill down.

"Zuko, I'm going to see Azula tomorrow," Katara said.

"No, I don't want to sign anything else; my hand hurts—wait, what."

"You heard me," she said levelly, calm blue gaze boring in his. There was nothing hesitant in it, and she waited patiently for her old friend to get over his shock.

"Wait. What," he said again. "I—what?"

"Azula," Katara enunciated slowly. "Your sister. In a straightjacket. Tried to kill us. Toph calls her Crazy. Remember?"

"Why?" he asked.

"Because you want me to," said said, and then she bit her lip. "And I—Sokka's going to be here. And Suki. And I know they have safe rooms, I know that, but it doesn't—it doesn't—"

Zuko just nodded.

"You need closure, Zuko," Katara said firmly. "And so do I."

"Now?"

The hope in his eyes was painful. Katara shook her head, and watched it fall. _I'm sorry_, she thought, but steeled herself to speak. "Tonight. After everyone's gone to bed. If we're the only ones awake…"

"We're the only ones who might get hurt. Good."

Katara smiled a little crookedly, tugged her curls around so that they rested over a single bare shoulder. "I was going to say that no one would follow us, but there's that, too."

They looked at each other tightly for a moment.

Yes, there was that, too.

They stood in silence for a moment or two, just contemplating what exactly they were planning to do. The entire world had needed someone to blame after the war, and as one of the most visible perpetrators, Azula had been the target of the most ire. Ozai was all well and good, but he'd hidden away in his castle—this castle, Spirits, he'd hid away in _this_ _castle_—and let his daughter and his armies do all the _real_ work.

Likely, the world at large would demand that she was brought before a war tribunal.

Katara could not allow that to happen.

She'd learned a long time ago that hatred bred hatred.

She'd also learned that it wasn't worth it.

Koh take them, _it wasn't worth it_.

Zuko's hand on her arm woke her of her reverie. He was too warm, and he pulled her back to earth, settled her back into her own skull. Katara worked on a smile, wry, a little bitter.

Still a smile, though.

"We should probably go find out if Sokka survived the trip," Zuko said.

Katara snorted. "This is Sokka. He survives _everything_. He survived a field trip with _you_, remember?"

"Hey!"

"It's true, though," Katara said, and patted his arm. The faux-sympathy was enough to send them both into snickers, but not enough to induce the full-out, stomach-churning, cheek-hurting laughter that she thought maybe they both needed.

She didn't ask he if thought they could do this.

She already knew the answer to that.

—

Sokka hadn't changed at all.

Katara had no idea what she'd been expecting. No, really, she hadn't thought that this was going to be a big deal—she'd thought he was going to fall on his face (which he did), and that Suki was going to smack him (which she did), and she'd thought—she'd thought—

She'd thought she'd be okay.

But her older brother stood there, wrapped up in blue fabric and that ridiculous wolf-tail of his and his stupid, stupid, _stupid_ familiar grin, and Katara…

Katara started to cry.

Because he brought the ice and snow with him. He brought the bite of late springs and early winters. He brought the smell of the tiny hardy flowers that grew in the crags of the cliffs, blue-violet ice roses peeping out of the rock face. He brought seal blubber and stewed sea prunes. He brought her home, if only for a minute, and Katara threw her arms around his neck, hugged hard, hugged tight, and held on even though she still had tears in her eyes.

"Hey, Katara," Sokka said into her hair. "You're squishing me! You got _fat_! Oi, Zuko, how did you let my baby sister get so fat?!"

"You're such an idiot," Katara laughed. And she thought about punching him, but instead she just left off, wiping her eyes and smiling so wide that her cheeks hurt. "I am not fat!"

"Yes, you are," Sokka said earnestly, and poked her in the stomach. "Look, you got fat!"

"I will hit you," Katara said. "Wait, no, Suki—" and she paused for a minute to whip around to grin widely at her friend "—hi Suki! Can you hit him for me?"

Suki's answering grin was as wide and guileless as Katara's own, and half a minute later Sokka made a terrible pained sound. It was so reminiscent of how they'd been when it had only been then and they'd only been kids and the entire world had been resting on their shoulders without any one of them really knowing it that it nearly sent her into tears again.

Freaking Sokka.

Freaking Suki.

Freaking _everyone_.

And then the thing was that suddenly Aang was in the mix, laughing and shouting and hooting about Sokka and Suki _finally_ getting married, and that meant that Toph couldn't be far behind. They didn't really go anywhere these days without each other, but Katara thought—

_Oh, Spirits, __**no**_.

Because there was Toph, there she was, and Sokka had lifted Suki and the soft swell of her stomach up at Aang's command and everyone was laughing except for Toph who really had no idea what was going on.

"Sokka, put me down! What if you hurt the baby?" Suki laughed and laughed.

"Kid's like me, Suki! Gonna be strong, there's nothing to worry abo—"

More laughter.

But Katara thought the world might have tilted a little on its access. Even from here, she could see Toph swallowing hard.

_Oh_, she thought. _Oh, oh, no, Spirits, why? Why would you do this to her? Why would you? No one deserves this. Especially not Toph. Oh, Toph._

Katara smiled brightly for her brother and her future sister-in-law, and looked for Zuko. He could fix this. He could.

But he was already gone, shot off after Toph faster than a firework.

"Where did Zuko go?" Aang asked no one in particular.

Katara's smile became fixed. "He'll meet us inside. Come on, let's get you guys settled! It's been a long journey, huh?"

"Yeah," Sokka sighed. "Hey, has anyone seen Toph?"

—

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_tbc_.

**notes3**: for that anon who was wondering about them making out? HA. you're funny.


	17. like a thousand times before

**disclaimer**: disclaimed.  
**dedication**: to Mars, for a lot of reasons.  
**notes**: every time I look over my outline for this, I lose my shit. Mai's introduction goes "Mai is so over this" AND IT'S SO FUNNY I CAN'T HELP IT?

**chapter title**: like a thousand times before  
**summary**: Zuko, Katara, and life after the war. — Zuko/Katara, others.

—

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So they went inside, all of them.

The Fire Palace was lit up with lamps hung from the ceiling that crackled merrily, in place of the natural light that filtered in during the day through the ornate carved windowpanes along the walls. The servants were nowhere to be found, but the kitchen smelled of spice and heat.

Sokka's stomach rumbled.

Katara laughed loud, and led the way to a small, private dining room.

"Please let the Fire Lord know where we are, when he returns," she told one of the serving girls, one of the younger ones with wide brown eyes that Katara had seen about the palace. The girl nodded, then scampered off into the depths of the palace without another word.

Servants still weirded her out, Katara had to admit.

Katara settled down, and she grinned at her brother and his fiancée curled up on the same pillow.

Ugh, they were so cute. It was _gross_.

Aang sat uncomfortably to her left, shifting his weight back and forth beneath the sheath of yellow-gold fabric thrown over his shoulder. Katara watched him out of the corner of her eye—his pants had been badly patched, she would need to get on that (and thought _wait, no, that's not my job anymore_)—he looked very young and very weary, like the world had already got to him.

Katara had an urge to wrap him up in a blanket, stick a cup of sweet warm milk in his hands, and never let anyone at him ever again. The world needed its Avatar, but not this much. Not so much that it sucked out his insides and left him hollowed-out.

She'd never wanted that for him. Never.

But then, Katara hadn't wanted a lot of things.

Not really, anyway.

"Here, egg custard," she said, and pushed a plate of the gooey-sweet tart towards him.

Aang looked at her with melancholy, unbelieving eyes.

Katara smiled in a guilty way; her skin crackled at the corners as her soul stretched, and this, this was how it was supposed to be—she was supposed to take care of him. She was supposed to be his older sister, not his lover.

No fourteen year old knew what they wanted, Katara thought. Not really, anyway. She hadn't, and neither did Aang.

Besides.

She couldn't go back, now.

She had duties here.

Katara thought about Zuko, and about how the light went out of his face whenever anyone brought his sister up. How he was as homeless as Aang was, really, because she'd learned that a long time ago that a house was not a home—how home was built in other people. How Zuko only had himself.

And how he needed her, too.

She closed her eyes for a little longer than a standard blink.

This had always been the end.

This had always been the only end.

"Oh, uh, hey guys."

Speak of the devil, Katara mused. She turned to see the Fire Lord standing in the doorway, Toph's tiny frame half-hidden behind him. She didn't need to look to know that Toph's little fist was curled into the fabric of Zuko's shirt; she'd done that herself, when she was afraid to face the world.

Zuko's shoulders were wide enough to provide protection from the storm.

Katara wondered why she'd never really noticed it, until now.

Maybe it didn't really matter.

"Oi, Hotman, you seen—Toph!"

Katara wanted to hit her head against something. Her brother was an _idiot_. He jumped up from the table, spun around, and whipped Toph out from behind Zuko to throw her in the air, laughing his face off.

"Hey, lookit you, kid! You're all grown up!"

Toph turned bright red, face screwed up and was, Katara knew, about to start wailing on him. He'd deserve it, too. She shot Suki a look—Suki, who knew better than anyone what Toph's crush meant, who understood, who didn't deserve to hurt like this—and was about to get up and yell at him.

"Sokka, put her down," said Aang, very quietly.

Somehow, his tiny little murmur expanded to fill the room. It became a loud swelling sound, thick with an annoyance and slathered liberally with bitterness.

"Leave her alone," the Avatar said.

"…O…kay?" said Sokka.

Regardless, he set the little earthbender down.

For a moment, the tension in the room was so thick that Katara could have sliced it in half with a blunted skinning knife, flint edge out to carve through the bad feelings that choked at her throat.

There was something going on here, and she was going to find it out.

However:

Sokka (being Sokka) didn't realize that anything was particularly wrong with this picture. He nearly skipped back to Suki's side, flopped down on his cushion, and went right back to stuffing food in his face. He grinned, wide and sloppy-silly. "Come and sit!"

He _really_ hadn't changed at all.

Katara couldn't help the smile, nor the thick ache in her chest.

(Saving the world, _what_?)

"You know what, I'm not actually hungry!" Toph said. "C'mon, Twinkles, wanna go break something?"

She'd plastered on something like a smile, the smeared unhappiness of it visible in the dip of her shoulders and the way she'd stiffened all over. Katara thought of stone, cleave points, and wondered if this was Toph's.

Aang vaulted up and over the table, airbender light as he skated across to the floor. Toph must have felt the movement—Toph felt every movement, all of it, Katara didn't know how she'd not lost her mind—because her face cracked and sang the wicked-wide heresies of a girl with nothing left to lose.

Aang caught her up, and said "Sifu, maybe we should give Zuko a break—"

"Pfff, no, what are you even talking about, Sparky's got his shit together, we're gonna have some fun! Later, losers, have fun being boring!" Toph said. She whirled, and headed for the door.

Aang's closed his eyes. He'd seen it, too.

He followed her, anyway.

Katara's heart swelled painfully in her throat.

Zuko sat down at her side. When no one was looking, he curled his fingers over hers. It was barely there at all, but it was enough to settle the storm that was brewing under the face of her emotions.

Without even realizing it, Katara leaned into him a little.

Zuko was solid. Zuko was warm. Zuko was the head of a nation, wrapped up in a trembling terrified nineteen-year-old. Zuko was the only one who understood what family meant to her, who waited on the edges of her consciousness with his hands and his humility and his Spirits-be-damned _honour_.

He was ridiculous.

But somewhere in him was a funny, deep sense of duty that reminded her too much of herself.

Katara sat with her arm pressed flush against Zuko's, and wondered which parts of herself she was ever really going to get back.

—

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_tbc_.


	18. princess war

**disclaimer**: disclaimed.  
**dedication**: to the Senshi, as always.  
**notes**: uhhhh…

**chapter title**: princess war  
**summary**: Zuko, Katara, and life after the war. — Zuko/Katara, others.

—

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That night, Katara pinned her hair high off her neck.

The air was thick with water, and it dripped down the line of her spine; it was a cadence of _wea-pon, wea-pon, wea-pon_, beating steady and constant as her heart. The reassurance of it settled her shoulders and her resolve.

She would have liked it better if it had been raining, but water in the air was water in the air. She had more than enough to work with—no one could burn it all away. Not Zuko. Not Aang. Not even Azula.

Katara room was dark; the only light that filtered in came through the window, from the moon. It splashed along her sheets in merry puddles of near-tangible quicksilver. She ran her hand over them, hovering just an inch off the bed, and let her gods fill her up with power.

She and Zuko had agreed that meeting when the moon hit its zenith was the best time, if only because it was when the rest of the world (the rest of their family, rather), was asleep.

She slipped out of her bedroom, dressed in soft black cloth that covered her hair. The neckline was high, wrapping up around her throat. It could have been the same black clothing that she'd worn the last time she and Zuko had gone on an _adventure_ together: only she'd burned those clothes a long time ago.

She'd burned them just as she'd burned the memory of the Southern Raiders, and nothing could bring them back, now.

"Zuko? Are you there?" she asked softly.

"Yeah," he said.

A bright little flame lit the hallway, and there he stood: dressed in nearly identical garments to Katara's own, his hair was out of its topknot, loose around his face. In the firelight, the dark circles beneath his eyes were more pronounced than ever. She ached to reach up and run her fingers over his face: to wipe away the evidence that the world had ever had any effect on him.

Katara didn't even know what she was doing.

"—sure about this, Katara?" Zuko had been talking.

"Of course I am," she said, brisk. She did not acknowledge the terror that closed around her neck, tight as a fight. She would not let this be the end of her. She still had a war to fight, even if it was only the war on the inside of her own skull. "Shouldn't we go?"

He eyed her a little warily, like he was debating just picking her up, throwing her back in her room, and locking the door. Like he wasn't sure if she knew what she was getting into.

But really, if there was anyone in the entire _world_ who knew what they were getting into with Princess Azula, it was Master Katara of the Southern Water Tribe.

She squared her shoulders. Set her jaw. Thought of all the things she knew Azula had done—the girl had burned a _city_, for La's sake—and sunk her faith deep into the cracks of her sould.

"I want to get some sleep tonight, Zuko," Katara said. "So lead the way."

And so he did.

—

The structure where they kept the mad princess was a very beautiful one. In the daylight, Katara had no doubt that it was among the loveliest of all the palace buildings: flowers slept in all the window nooks, and green leafy vines wound their way up the white walls to the dusty red roof. A bubbling fountain hid just out of sight—the sound of the water soothed over her ears like a benediction.

It was open. In the day, it would be light. It was perfectly non-threatening. In fact, it was everything she would have asked for, in a healer's place. Safe and quiet and out of the way, the only people who knew it existed were likely the people who had a right to be there, and no one else.

The girl with the battle scars in the back of her mind quietly approved.

Katara and Zuko moved through the night quiet as thieves. In tandem, they were a black spot in the already-dark night; sticking to the shadows, they almost played it like a game: one where if the guards caught them, they'd be buried in the ground.

Neither said it, but they'd been enough situations like that that it was almost funny. Katara wanted to laugh just so that she didn't cry.

"You know," Katara murmured, "if this was anyone except us, there'd be a problem here."

Zuko looked around a corner, mouth set hard. "What?"

"We're _sneaking into a top security_ building, Zuko."

He paused, and Katara was treated to the strangely satisfying sight of Zuko processing. It wasn't necessarily a pretty sight—in fact, it looked rather like someone had just clubbed him over the head, and he was trying to blink away the spots.

It was a little hilarious, but probably shouldn't have been.

(Mostly, the hilarity was masked hysteria, but Katara wasn't about to question it. Laughing was better than crying. Laughing was _always_ better than crying.)

"Well, uh," he muttered, "I guess we'll—work on that. Why are we doing this, again?"

"You know why," Katara said softly.

Zuko looked at her for a long time.

"Yeah," he said at last. "I guess I do."

Katara nodded tightly, all the lines of her body curled up tight into a knotted mess of woman-not-girl. She wrapped her arms around herself, ducking down small beneath his gaze. "So are we going?"

Zuko just nodded, like _okay, okay, I get it, you're right, you're always right_.

They climbed up the trellis. Katara's breath came dead silent but strong, muscles pumping and Spirits, it felt good to be like this again. It felt _good_ to sneak through the world, to do things the _wrong_ way, the _easy_ way, the _fast_ way.

It felt good to do things exactly as she'd have done them had she never won a war.

"No guards up here? Zuko, what is your security getting paid to _do_?"

"I actually have no idea," Zuko muttered, face grim.

Katara stuffed her fist in her mouth to stifle her laughter. Now was emphatically _not_ the time.

(But really, when _was_ it the time?)

Azula's room was right below them. It was dark inside—the princess was asleep, then, likely lost in a world where perhaps her mother had loved her properly.

Katara didn't wait.

She slid down through the skylight (no windows for a girl who might throw herself out one, given the chance), knuckles curling around the edge of the hole. She hung there suspended for a moment, floating in the dark.

And then she let go, hit the ground, rolled—didn't cry out though her ankle twisted beneath her—and pulled herself up. Zuko dropped like a shadow at her side. Her heart pounded in her throat.

This was being alive, Katara thought. _This was being alive_.

The skein of water looped around her hands. She hadn't even thought about it, but she dropped to one knee to brush her fingers over the already-swelling skin. Healing was as natural to her as breathing.

She'd forgotten that.

The pain receded.

The only sound was the long soft slow murmur of someone in a deep, deep sleep. Katara had a notion that maybe they caretakers drugged the princess, if only to let the girl get some rest.

On the tiny cot, the princess slept.

When Katara had been little, her mother had told her tales of sleeping princesses that would only awaken with a kiss. They were always gentle, sweet girls; girls who'd never held a man's heart in his chest, and never wanted to kill someone. They simply slept, vulnerable, and waited to be saved.

This was nothing like that.

Azula was only vulnerable because she'd drawn into herself.

But that didn't mean she wasn't dangerous.

A darkness hung around Katara. The moon was only a sliver, but the water in the air shivered with power. She stared at the quietly breathing lump.

Like this, Azula looked like she'd never so much as hurt a fly.

But Katara knew better.

Katara always knew better.

The water in the air itched to curve into a shining blade. She could kill the princess now, could end the girl that had caused so much strife. Could kill what had killed so many others.

It would only make her sick. She'd never be able to forgive herself for killing someone who couldn't fight back. And she spared a glance at Zuko, watching his younger sister sleep with a terrible tenderness on his face.

He'd never forgive her, either.

(Though he would perhaps understand her need to kill Azula with her own hands better than anyone at all.)

Instead, the water pooled in her palms, soaking into her skin to turn a blue so bright that it nearly lit the entire room. Katara thought of the summer sky in the South Pole, empty and wide and this exact colour.

For one minute, her heart hurt.

Her heart hurt so much.

But someone needed her.

She didn't have time for pain.

Katara walked across the room, deliberately slow as she gathered herself up.

_I am a Master. Water is my weapon. And I will save you, Azula, even if it kills me_, she told herself over and over. The mantra gave her the focus and the strength that she needed to walk those crucial steps.

"Do you know what you're doing, Katara?"

Katara looked up at Zuko, glowing-blue gloved hands posed an inch away from Azula's temples. He was staring at her, staring with his eyes wider than she'd ever seen them. Spirits, he was scared. He was so scared that she was going to hurt his little sister.

And the worst part was that he wasn't even going to stop her.

Her heart leapt into her mouth.

She forced a queasy grin, but lying to him would be an unkindness. Especially now, when he trusted her so much that he hadn't made a move towards her even though she was gloved in her killing element.

"Haven't got a clue," Katara said.

Then she lowered her hands, closed her eyes, and fell into Azula's mind.

—

The world scattered.

Azula's mind was a labyrinth. It was gnarled twisting turns, haunted cobwebs hung from the ceiling. Bits of memory floated past Katara's consciousness, burst of light admist the dank halls of the princess' mind.

Katara gripped herself tightly. She was a tiny blue orb the same colour of her eyes—this was her soul. Spirits, this was her _soul_.

And if she wasn't careful, Azula's insanity would creep up on her, too.

She shook it off.

She had things to do.

The first memory came:

Azula was a tiny slip of a girl, maybe eleven. She was hidden behind a curtain, peeking out into a dark red room where men sat on their knees around a table. Right next to an old man with an ugly beard was—

Was that Zuko?

Katara's blue wisp pressed closer into the memory.

Zuko was so young—younger than she'd ever seen him, near as young as Aang had been when she'd first found him in that ice berg all that time ago. He was on his knees, begging, _crying_, and he so young and so scared.

Ozai sat on a throne. His face was hidden in the darkness, but the sound of his voice was loud enough to make the little princess clap her hands over her ears.

"_AGNI KAI_," the voice boomed.

Both Azula and Katara knew those words. The princess hissed, furious, but what Katara felt was a deep, fierce flood of _rage_. It rose up in Katara's chest, burning and threatening to eat them both up whole. She couldn't control it—

But Azula's broken mind could. The emotion had woken the drifting princess to Katara's presence.

_GET OUT!_ she screamed._ GET __**OUT**__! THAT'S NOT FOR YOU TO SEE! GET OUT, GET OUT! GET OUT GETOUT__**GETOUTGE**_—!

Katara had never been thrown out of someone's mind before.

Blue fire flared, bright as lightning. Katara shot back from Azula's prone body, palms scalded, and collided with something solidly warm. The rage that had sent her reeling from the princess' mind still hummed in her veins, sparking up like lightning along her spine. The ice dagger was pressed into his jugular faster than anyone could blink.

Her breath was harsh and fast in his ear.

"Don't move," she said.

"Katara—?"

"Oh, oh," she said. "Oh, Zuko, oh, gods, Spirits, oh."

"You okay?"

"No, no I'm—I'm not, oh, Spirits," she said, and the knife clattered away. Katara wound her fingers into the soft fabric of his shirt. He was solid, alive and warm, and not the crying boy in Azula's memory. "You—she—Zuko, she saw, when you—when your father—the scar, she saw it, and you—"

"What?"

His scar was very prominent in the night's quiet around them. The urge to touch him there, the ridges where scarred-rough skin met smooth flesh overtook her. He'd told her how he'd got it, told her what that monster of a man had done; but seeing it…

Seeing it was a different matter altogether.

"She loves you, you know," Katara said softly. "Azula."

Azua's silence was suddenly a much more pronounced thing. Her breathing was so quiet as to not be there at all, but Katara knew that it was just her body

"She's okay, Zuko. But we should—we should probably go. Someone might—"

"Yeah," he said. "Okay. What did you—what did you see?"

"Enough to know that I can't do this on my own," she said. Katara set her jaw, determined. "Enough to know that normal water isn't going to work. She's in there, I know she is. She threw me out. But…"

"But what?"

The desperation in his voice crawled beneath her skin to set all her nerves to screaming, and the blue glow of healing water gleamed in her mind's eye. "But I need something stronger than bending. I need _magic_."

"…What?" he asked, bewildered.

Katara closed her eyes for a little longer than a standard blink. All she could think of was Azula's little hand curling around Ty Lee's, gritting her teeth just a little as her older brother screamed. All she could think of was the fact that Azula had known that she was disposable. She'd known. She'd always known.

"I need Spirit Oasis water to bring her back, Zuko."

"_Agni_," he breathed. "What—what do we—?"

"We go get it," Katara said. "Even if it kills me, we're going to get it."

—

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_tbc_.

**notes2**: here have a dumb long chapter.  
**notes3**: bluh.


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